NXT
Date: November 27, 2014
Location: Full Sail University, Winter Park, Florida
Commentators: Rich Brennan, Renee Young, Jason Albert

The big story this week is Finn Balor facing Tyson Kidd in his first singles match in NXT. It’s going to be interesting to see how much more impressive he is than Itami, who hasn’t done much for me, though he needs a longer match than he’s had so far. Other than that we’re gearing up for Zayn vs. Neville II in two weeks and it should be glorious. Let’s get to it.

Marcus Louis vs. Tyler Breeze

Louis continues to be in a state of shock and potentially psychotic over losing his hair. He doesn’t take his towel off for a few moments as Tyler looks disgusted by Louis. Fans: “WHERE’S YOUR EYEBROWS???” Breeze says he can’t be asked to take on the uggo of all uggos and won’t be the precious to Louis’ Gollum. Marcus takes the towel off his head and Breeze is even more disturbed. Now he thinks Louis is an idiot and a freak. “NOBODY WILL EVER LOVE YOU!” Louis looks away and turns around into the Beauty Shot for the pin at 2:28. Breeze was as evil as I’ve ever seen him here and I LOVED IT.

Louis rolls out and screams as he leaves. I could go for more of this Louis Is Nuts thing as he’s selling the heck out of it. Marcus gets back in the ring and the fans think this is awkward. After a break, Louis very slowly walked out the front door of the arena.

Carmella vs. Blue Pants

Enzo says he has a surprise for Carmella (Fans: “BLUE PANTS! BLUE PANTS! BLUE PANTS!”) and of course it’s Blue Pants, complete with Big Cass humming a theme song for her. He does the entrances and the fans actually give her a standing ovation. Fans: “REMATCH! REMATCH! REMATCH!” Carmella runs her over to start and does it again with a dropkick. Off to the leg crossface from Carmella for the submission at 0:48.

Carmella laughs at Enzo post match. They better not split up Enzo and Cass.

Balor says Kidd should send a tape of their match tonight to Kidd’s uncle Bret.

Lucha Dragons vs. Tye Dillinger/Jason Jordan

Non-title. Cara and Dillinger get things going with Sin grabbing the arm and taking him back into the corner for a tag off to Kalisto. The champs keep taking turns on the arm until Dillinger takes Sin over to the corner for the tag off to Jordan. In something you don’t see all that often, Jason covers him for no count. Back to Dillinger for some stomps but we get heel miscommunication to frustrate Dillinger. The hot tag brings in Kalisto to speed things up with a very high springboard wristdrag to Tye. Cara’s suicide dive takes Tye out again and the Salida Del Sol pins Jordan at 3:35.

Rating: D+. Glorified squash here but the Dragons looked good going into their title match against the Vaudevillains at the next Takeover. The problem though is their reign hasn’t had the time to build yet, and when you’re coming off a year long title reigns, it’s kind of hard to get into one that has consisted of the rematch with the champs and potentially the feud where the titles change. At least there’s been a bit of build to the upcoming defense though.

We recap Sasha Banks costing Bayley a match against Becky Lynch last week and Charlotte making the save post match.

Kevin Owens, complete with a FIGHT t-shirt, is coming in two weeks.

Here’s Bayley with something to say. She doesn’t have a match tonight (“BOO!”) but she has to deal with something tonight. Charlotte may not be here, but she’s used to dealing with bullies like Lynch and Banks. When she was a kid she was bullied every day and when she came home from school crying, her mom told her to go back the next day and stand up to the bullies because they’re cowards. Cue Banks and Lynch to shove Bayley but she nails Sasha in the face. Becky nails her from behind though and they stomp away until the referees come out. Again, Lynch looks like a star here.

Natalya is excited for her husband to get to face Balor tonight. Tyson cuts her off (Natalya: “But I’m putting you over!”) and says Justin cost them that match because he has a knack for losing. Tyson has been working with Bret recently and is the new Hitman. Balor is a guy who can’t live up to his hype. Yeah he’s good, but he’s not THAT good. Natalya goes to hug him but Tyson has to go Facetime with the cats. She doesn’t seem too bothered by this.

Time for a silent movie starring the Vaudevillains. The Lucha Dragons are trying to rob a bank and it’s up to the Vaudevillains to stop them. But first, TRAINING MONTAGE! English does push-ups while Gotch gets in a fist fight WITH A BEAR. They go for a run before heading to the bank where they find a box of TNT. It’s the Mini Lucha Dragons behind it of course, and they wind up getting blow up, somehow making Gotch and English the NXT Tag Team Champions. Voiceover: “No Lucha Dragons were harmed in this production, but at NXT Takeover: R-Evolution, we make no such promises!” This was GREAT.

We run down the Takeover card and Sasha vs. Charlotte is confirmed.

Finn Balor vs. Tyson Kidd

Itami/Balor vs. Ascension is confirmed too. Technical sequence to start with Tyson grabbing a wristlock to take over but Balor spins him down to the mat in a nice counter. Kidd comes back with a chinlock as the fans call him Nattie’s Wife. It turns to a TYSON CHICKEN chant as Balor dropkicks him to the floor, only to have Kidd hide behind Natalya to avoid a dive.

We take a break and come back with Balor kicking Kidd from the apron but having his springboard broken up. Kidd knocks him out to the floor and follows up with a neckbreaker outside. Back in and Tyson hammers away in the corner before catapulting him face first into the bottom turnbuckle for two. Another chinlock doesn’t last that long but Kidd stops the comeback with a kick to the ribs. Tyson puts him in the Tree of Woe for some knees but stops to yell at Natalya for not helping him cheat.

There’s a running dropkick in the corner for two and we hit another chinlock. Kidd: “ASK HIM!” Referee: “He said no!” Kidd: “WELL ASK HIM IN IRISH!” Back up and Balor escapes a suplex and fires off some chops followed by a Pele. A spinning suplex gets two for Finn but he charges into a boot in the corner. Balor kicks him off the top but misses the top rope stomp. Tyson can’t hook the Sharpshooter so he sends Balor face first into the buckle again. The springboard elbow hits knees so Finn hits a running knee to the face. Up top again for the stomp but Ascension runs in for the DQ at 14:41.

Rating: B-. Good but not great match here as they were just getting going near the end. Balor continues to look like a much more well rounded guy than Itami, but again I need to see Itami in a long match like this one to get a better feel for him. Kidd is still the work horse of this show and I’m glad that he’s getting some shots on Raw as a reward.

Itami comes in for the save and a big pull apart brawl ends the show.

Overall Rating: B-. I want to see R-Evolution. That’s the key to TV shows like this and it’s worked like a charm here. They spent last week building up the main event and this week it was all about almost every other match on the card. This was a good, entertaining episode with more wrestling to balance out last week’s talking heavy show. Good stuff again and the big show looks like it could blow the roof off the place again.

Results

Tyler Breeze b. Marcus Louis – Beauty Shot

Carmella b. Blue Pants – Leg crossface

Lucha Dragons b. Tye Dillinger/Jason Jordan – Salida Del Sol to Jordan

Finn Balor vs. Tyson Kidd went to a no contest when the Ascension interfered

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book on the History of the Royal Rumble at Amazon for just $3.99 at:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PZ1GR7E

And check out my Amazon author page with wrestling books for under $4 at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

This was a show where I’ve needed some time to digest everything that I saw. Now everyone knew that this was a one match show coming in, but I don’t think people were expecting to see something like this. Obviously the big moment is coming at the end but there was some other interesting stuff before then. Let’s get to it.

I’m going to gloss over the pre-show matches as there’s just nothing to talk about. Fandango is somehow even less interesting than he was before and Swagger vs. Cesaro has been done to death. Neither match was any good, but they REALLY don’t need to have an hour long pre-show. That makes a show four hours, meaning the three hour Raw is now the short show. Let that sink in for a minute.

The show itself opened with the first of our filler segments. Vince, Cena and the Authority came out to reiterate the stipulations of the main event, with the added caveat that only Cena could bring the Authority back in the future. Not only did this not segment need to happen to start a pay per view, but it didn’t need to happen at all. This could have been announced later and another match could have been added in to fill some of the time. But instead we needed a fifteen minute speech because we hadn’t heard HHH and Stephanie talk enough.

The opening match was the four way tag for the titles, with the Dusts dropping the belts down to Miz/Mizdow. This whole thing was a way to get somewhere with Mizdow’s popularity, which is the only way they can go. It was a watchable match but at the same time there was too much going on to have it be anything good.

Los Matadores and the Usos were just kind of there to fill in spots and make sure we didn’t have heel vs. heel. Again the match felt like they were filling time at points, because there are only five matches on the card and what else are they supposed to do? Miz celebrating with both belts was a nice touch as you would expect.

Adam Rose and the Bunny played with toys when Slater Gator came in to set up a match later. This would be more filler.

One group of bad Divas plus Natalya beat another group of bad Divas plus Paige. This match was an absolute disaster with the moves being botches, almost no flow to the match, and everyone being all over the place. The idea was supposed to be Paige vs. the World, but she would have been better off without her partners anyway.

Ambrose and Wyatt had a good but not great brawl to set up the next match at TLC. Thankfully they announced that in advance as it would have felt like a waste of time given how obvious they were with where it’s going. The match itself wasn’t great but it was a nice shot in the arm after an hour of uninteresting stuff. The worst part of this whole thing though: Ambrose doing the Wyatt spider pose and Cole shouting “THAT’S WHAT BRAY WYATT DOES!”

I can’t stand this talking down to the audience and acting like they can’t remember anything longer than eight seconds ago. Yeah some of the fans are watching for the first time, but just let them think that Dean is being insane instead of treating the fans who have watched for more than a day like imbeciles. In other words, makes Michael Cole SHUT UP FOR ONCE!

The comedy tag match was nothing you wouldn’t see on Smackdown. The Bunny continues to get on Rose’s nerves but they need to get somewhere with it already as this isn’t getting anyone anywhere.

Roman Reigns did a nice satellite interview, saying everything he’s said in the previous ones. Apparently he’s been taking acting lessons recently and they actually seem to be paying off. He felt a lot more natural here instead of reading off a script (which he likely was).

Nikki Bella won the Divas Title from AJ in a match designed off Sheamus vs. Bryan at Wrestlemania XXVIII, complete with the kiss to AJ. In theory the Bellas are back together, making the last few months of driving me crazy TOTALLY POINTLESS. Nikki did look good though.

The main event was a nice long match which lived up to expectations, complete with a bunch of surprises. Big Show knocked Henry out in about fifteen seconds and we had the best part of the match: HHH’s emotional roller coaster. Yeah I get annoyed when he takes the better part of forever to get anywhere with his promos, but when he calms down and lets his body language do the talking, he’s incredible effective.

The match slowed down for a bit until everything broke down and a Curb Stomp into a spinwheel kick from Rusev was enough to pin Ryback. Yeah after the last few weeks of it being all about Ryback, he was out via pin in about eight minutes. That more or less ends the return push that he had going on as Ryback continues to lose the big matches. It crippled Lex Luger’s career and it’s gotten Ryback as well. Granted not being very good in the ring has hurt him too.

It slowed again with Big Show taking a long beating from everyone. Then for a change of pace, Ziggler took a long beating from everyone. It all broke down again with Rusev throwing Ziggler around on the floor, only to miss a splash through the table, resulting in a countout. They had to get rid of him somehow so it was this or a DQ. Twelve minutes passed between Ryback and Rusev’s eliminations to give you an idea of how much things slowed down. The next one was a bit faster as Rollins Curb Stomped Rowan, setting up the discus lariat from Harper for a pin just a few minutes later.

Then things got interesting as Big Show knocked Cena out, turning heel for probably the fifteenth time in his WWE career. Rollins got an easy pin and Big Show walked out, making it 3-1 with Ziggler facing Kane, Harper and Rollins. This was VERY interesting as it put the focus on Dolph instead of Cena, which is exactly what this match should have been about: making someone else into a star. Cena doesn’t need a win like this, so let someone else get a big rub.

Ziggler was basically dead at this point but kept fighting, which was exactly the story they had been setting up for the last several weeks. He took out Kane with a superkick and Zig Zag before taking one heck of a beating from Harper. Luke got frustrated when he couldn’t pin him though and Ziggler grabbed a rollup and some jeans for the pin.

This sequence was right out of the Shawn Michaels playbook and that’s as good as you can get. The key thing to Ziggler’s offense is that it can come from out of nowhere and it’s not a huge stretch for him to do this. The superkick, Zig Zag and rollup are things that you can do out of nowhere and again it played to the Ziggler Will Not Quit idea. That was just a warmup for the good stuff though.

Rollins and Ziggler had an awesome six or seven minute sequence of near falls and missed finishers, including Rollins nearly hitting a top rope Curb Stomp. Ziggler finally took over and hit a Zig Zag but the Stooges came in for the save. HHH made another save after another Zig Zag and laid out Dolph with a Pedigree. All hope was lost (including Cena, who you would think might have come out for the save, despite him seemingly being the worst teammate EVER in the buildup to this match) but instead STING debuted, laid out HHH and put Ziggler on top of Rollins (who hadn’t moved for about eight minutes) for the final pin.

So yeah, STING debuted. That was up there with Cena turning heel and the Streak being broken on the list of things that I won’t believe until I see for myself. He laid out HHH with a Death Drop (incredible selling by the Game) and gave Ziggler the pin because Sting fights against corrupt authority. This was the big moment that people are going to remember and likely sets up the big match at Wrestlemania.

The match itself was all about the drama and it knocked that out of the park. I could feel my heart beating out of my chest on those near falls and the and I had to see who was going to win in the end. They did a great job of making me guess and that’s all you’re supposed to do in something like this. Sting coming out was a great shock and the whole thing worked like a charm.

Overall, no one is going to remember anything but the main event and Sting debuting. It’s not a great or even really good show, but the main event was all it was supposed to be and a lot more. Sting debuting is one of the moments that you’re going to remember for years to come, even if it doesn’t go anywhere long term. The main event rocked the house and made you forget how horrible the rest of the show, save for Ambrose vs. Wyatt, really was. Good stuff for the most part but just fast forward past most of it.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book on the History of the Royal Rumble at Amazon for just $3.99 at:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PZ1GR7E

And check out my Amazon author page with wrestling books for under $4 at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

Time for a good old fashioned brawling tag team: the APA.

The team, originally called Hell’s Henchmen, became the Acolytes in late 1998. Here’s one of their first beatdowns on Raw, May 3, 1999.

Mankind vs. Acolytes

Hardcore match. Mankind has his 2×4 and goes after Farrooq with it but Bradshaw pops him with a conveniently placed snow shovel and we head outside. The numbers are catching up with Mankind and we go back inside quickly. More beating follows but a Foley chant lets him hit a double clothesline. That of course doesn’t last long and we head back outside. This is moving fast again.

Foley goes into various objects and Farrooq pounds on him. A low blow gets him a break and he fires off some bell and trashcan shots on both guys. Back inside and Foley gets two and a chair shot, in that order. After some heel miscommunication the Claw goes on Farrooq but Bradshaw breaks it up and a double powerbomb onto some chairs ends this.

Rating: D+. Not much here but there wasn’t really a way to have Foley win this and make it look reasonable. That’s one of the benefits of the Attitude Era: people didn’t overcome ridiculous odds most of the time and it kept things a bit more reasonable than it gets today. Now that being said, the rest of the era was insane but that was always a perk.

The Acolytes would win the Tag Team Titles in May, lost them in June and get a rematch at Fully Loaded 1999.

Tag Titles: Acolytes vs. Hardys/Michael Hayes

Yep it’s a handicap match. At this point I had zero clue which was Matt and which was Jeff. We start in the aisle where they just leave the belts. Who would have thought two of these four would win world titles? I don’t think this has started yet. According to Ross it has. Ah there’s the bell so Ross was wrong.

We have Farrooq and Jeff in there to start while Bradshaw beats up both guys on the floor. Matt takes out everyone with a top rope moonsault. They really were great fliers back in the day. Hayes is pretty freaking worthless here but what did you really expect? The APA takes over with just power. Matt picks to tag Hayes. Why in the world would you do that? We get a Freebird reference so I’m good for the night. There’s Jeff. Crowd is DEAD for this.

I think Lita helped them a good bit to say the least. The Hardys simply aren’t that good at this point. Bradshaw gets a nice belly to back suplex off the top. Not bad. Jeff clocks him with Hayes’ cane over the head. Poetry in Motion is still very much a work in progress here. Hayes comes in and a double powerbomb gives the APA their titles back. Edge, Christian and a ladder would be coming soon.

Rating: D+. I didn’t like it at all. Hayes was just in the way here as he’s old and most of the people here don’t know what he used to be nor do they care more than likely. The Hardys would dump him maybe the next night. Either way, the APA would lose the belts to Kane and X-Pac two weeks later so this was just to get Hayes out of the Hardy picture.

There was new tag team in the company around fall of 1999 and the APA had to reestablish their dominance. From Unforgiven 1999.

Dudley Boys vs. Acolytes

The Dudleys are BRAND NEW here and are the hottest team in the world at the moment. The referee is Jimmy Korderas who wasn’t striking. Bubba has a stutter here. They were just so far ahead of every other team in the world at this time and it’s insane to see what they are today. What are you expecting here really? Bubba telegraphs a splash worse than anything I have ever seen as he jumps at Farrooq’s knees. That was horrible looking.

The Dudleys are in tie-dye here and it looks great. Lawler keeps making fun of Moolah and Mae Young which is very amusing yet totally evil and wrong. Again I have to ask, what does it mean to do something with authority? That makes no sense at all. This is your standard big old brawl and that’s all you could really ask for it to be.

Bradshaw gets an ok belly to back suplex off the top for two. And here’s Stevie Richards dressed like an Acolyte. He kicks D-Von and Bradshaw pins him. Ok then. To say a lot, Bradshaw is the only non ECW guy in there. Yeah it meant a lot.

Rating: D. Way too quick of a brawl here and it meant nothing. This show has been horrible and we’re just an hour into it so far. I was bored out of my mind here and I liked the Dudleys a lot back then. The ending was beyond stupid and it did the match no favors at all. Let’s just get this over with.

We’ll close out the year at Armageddon 1999.

Tag Team Battle Royal

Dudleys, Godfather/Mark Henry, Headbangers, Edge/Christian, Hardy Boyz, Acolytes, Mean Street Posse, Too Cool.

The Dudleys are out first and yell at Edge and Christian. They all get in a fight before the rest are here. The last man standing wins a tag title shot at the Rumble for his team. The Hardys get a big pop. Terri is with them and is not great looking and undesirable as ever. I love the Posse. I always did. Too Cool gets a solid pop too.

Wow the entrances took awhile for this. It’s individual elimination mind you. Rodney is out. These are hard to call so I’ll more or less be waiting until the end of things. The third member of the Posse keeps going in to cheat. Ok apparently if one guy is eliminated the partner is too. Headbangers are out.

Henry and Godfather are out. Like I said there’s no way to talk about what’s going on here since everything is just a mess. Edge and Christian get both of Too Cool out. It’s Edge and Christian, Dudleys, Acolytes and Hardys. In other words, the four best teams are left. D-Von and Christian go through the ropes and fight on the floor. D-Von pulls Edge out so it’s down to three. There was an affinity for the DDT in this era.

Jeff gets a What’s Up before it was named. Jeff’s crotch is the Promised Land apparently. Jeff takes 3D on top of that but Matt puts the Dudleys out so it’s Hardys vs. Acolytes. Jeff is up after all that inside of a minute. Sure why not. Bradshaw and Matt go out at the same time so they just let us have the other two go at it instead. Bradshaw goes back in anyway so guess how this goes. Not as you would expect actually as Jeff puts Farrooq out but it’s not seem. Ok never mind as Matt is allowed back in. This needs to end like now. And so it does as Farrooq LAUNCHES Jeff out to win.

Rating: D+. Fast paced but boring as are most battle royals. The constant cheating etc at the end just got annoying too. This wasn’t very good but the crowd popped for most of the entrances so there we are. Not terrible but nothing great at all as this could have easily been done on Smackdown or Raw.

Time for another hardcore match on Raw, February 7, 2000.

Hollies vs. Acolytes

Hardcore match. The Hollies charge the ring and are immediately knocked to the floor. All four head into the crowd and to the concourse. We hit the concession stand and it’s time to drink beer. Bradshaw loads up a powerbomb on a table but here’s Viscera with a 2×4. After he slips on beer and gets up, he breaks the weakest 2×4 ever over Bradshaw’s back to give Hardcore the pin. This was short but fun.

Another title shot at Fully Loaded 2000.

Tag Titles: Edge and Christian vs. APA

I miss Edge and Christian’s old entrance where the camera flies all over the place and looks for them and they’re in the entry way like normal wrestlers. Edge insults Dallas sports teams which makes me hate them quite a bit. They insult the Kennedy assassination before setting up for flash photography but the APA and their awesome music cuts them off. Bradshaw threatens to put his boot in their ears. Ok then.

He actually uses the term cheap heat. That came out of nowhere. He defends Texas by saying how many titles they’ve won. That just makes him sound like a geek. I didn’t know FTS was more commonly known as Bradshaw. Farroq gets a great step shot in on Christian right off the bat.

This starts off as little more than a squash as Bradshaw just freaking murders Christian. Edge and Christian finally get some offense in as they get the advantage on Bradshaw. I like how they use such generic offense to stay in a match for as long as they can until they can hit a much bigger move. That’s a nice little way to do something. It lasts for all of a minute though as the APA dominates again.

We hear for about the 12th time that Bradshaw is from Texas. Seriously, WHAT IS SO GREAT ABOUT TEXAS??? With the Acolytes hitting their finishers, Edge goes to the floor and grabs a belt. He gets the referee’s attention and nails Farrooq with it for the DQ. I kind of like that as it plays them holding the belts even longer. The same time though, it makes them look ridiculously weak and since they were known to keep stealing wins like that, it’s rather stupid also.

Either way it was ok I guess. Post match the champions are beaten down even more which for some reason means we should talk about the Rock? That makes no sense but at least they saved it for after the match ended, unlike WCW who likely wouldn’t have acknowledged the match going on at all.

Rating: C. It was really short and pointless but it was never dull. That’s the best thing here: they kept moving the entire time. That’s always a plus as it kept things interesting and made you want to keep watching. I really don’t like the whole cheating to keep the belts thing as it makes them look quite weak, but that’s fine I guess as it fits them to the letter. However at just over five minutes they didn’t have enough time to get anything going so it’s about as average as you can get overall.

Next up was the feud with the Right to Censor, including this eight man tag at Unforgiven 2000.

Dudley Boys/APA vs. Right to Censor

“We’re censors!” “We don’t like censors!” “Let’s have a pre-planned mostly athletic encounter to settle our scripted differences!” There’s your backstory. The APA and the Dudleys dances with Too Cool on Smackdown which wasn’t as funny as it sounds. Steven says his team will win in his hometown. D-Von vs. Goodfather to start which might be an Affirmative Action thing.

The fans, to no one’s surprise, want tables. Let’s see…four former ECW guys in this. No wonder the fans are into it. Bubba comes in quickly and the Ho Train misses. Belly to back gets two for Bubba. Buchanan is so mad he took his tie off. Bradshaw comes in to a nice pop and beats up Buchanan for awhile. Buchanan hits his pretty awesome walk up the ropes and hit a turning clothesline for two.

Venis comes in with his white pants and jokes run rampant. Fallaway slam puts Venis down and it’s off to Farrooq (how DO you spell that anyway?). This has been one sided so far which almost guarantees an RTC victory. Venis hits what is called the Blue Thunder Bomb on No Mercy and it’s off to Goodfather. D-Von is the one getting beaten down at the moment.

Val misses an elbow and there’s the hot (it’s Philly so it’s automatically hot) tag to Bubba. He cleans house 4-1 and again, why do face teams allow their partners to fight such huge odds? Doomsday Device puts Val down and it all breaks down. Steven slips in a kick to Bubba and that’s enough for Val to pin him. Steven was never legally in.

Rating: C-. Just an 8 man here and the fans are into the show already so it’s not like it took much. The ending was pretty clear after the RTC got beaten down so much. To be fair though every company has tendencies in their booking like that which if you watch enough you can almost always pick up. ECW was really bad about that. Anyway, this wasn’t great but it did its job well enough I suppose.

The team was good enough to be brought in for some rare main event shots, including this one on Raw, January 15, 2001.

Kurt Angle/Edge/Christian vs. Steve Austin/???/???

That’s quite the heel team as they’re all champions at this point. Out of nowhere the APA run in and they’re the partners apparently. Austin and Angle start but Angle tags Christian in almost immediately. Off to Edge and Bradshaw now which goes badly for the Canadian. Double spinebuster to Edge as Farrooq comes in. It’s weird to see Austin beat up Edge. They’re tagging that fast mind you.

Angle vs. Austin now and Austin shockingly BACKFLIPS out of a suplex. Edge and Christian grab some chairs but can’t hit a Conchairto on Austin. The APA chases them off and we’re down to the two stars. Superplex gets two for Austin. HHH comes out to the ramp and Austin stares him down. Low blow by Angle and Kurt takes over. Austin manages to counter an Angle suplex and takes over again.

There’s a belly to belly for Austin’s trouble though as Angle pops those hips like only he can. Angle Slam is blocked as they’re flying through this. Thesz Press and Austin hammers away. Angle goes up but jumps into a Stunner to end it. More or less a one on one match but that’s fine by me.

Rating: C+. WAY fast here and it worked pretty well I thought. This works fine as HHH not getting involved here and having Austin do his dirty work for him was perfectly fine as it kills two birds with one stone for him. The tag team aspect meant nothing for the most part but the match was still incredibly energetic and fun.

Another day, another chance to beat up the Hollies on Raw, April 30, 2001.

APA vs. Hollies

It’s a big brawl to the shock of no one paying attention. Bradshaw vs. Hardcore to start with the future WWE Champion in control. Hardcore manages to send him to the floor and that gets him nowhere. Farrooq gets the stairs and they go upside Hardcore’s head as Crash accidentally has the referee. They throw him into the crowd and Bradshaw keeps up the dominance. Crash tries to help his cousin and that gets him nowhere. Crash is supposed to be a bit drunk here. Hardcore keeps fighting and escapes the Dominator but Crash accidentally takes him out with a missile dropkick and the Clothesline ends Hardocore.

Rating: D. Just a comedy match for the most part and not a particularly funny one. This is something you never see anymore: a random match on a story made earlier on in the night. Anymore you would expect a swerve or a run-in here because that’s what you’ve been taught to expect. Not much of a match but Crash was always good for a chuckle.

They did a double shot on Raw, July 9, 2001.

Tag Titles: APA vs. Dudley Boys

Apparently Spike is going to be out for awhile with a broken leg. The APA clears the ring to start and we get down to Bubba vs. Farrooq. Off to Bradshaw as the Dudleys take over. The reverse 3D gets two. D-Von pounds on him and it’s off to Bubba. He goes to the corner for the ten punches but gets powerbombed out and both guys are down. Off to Farrooq and D-Von with Simmons getting a spinebuster for two. 3D doesn’t work but What’s Up does to Farrooq. Bubba goes for a table but Spike comes out, hits Bubba with the crutch and throws him in where Bradshaw’s Clothesline gives the APA their third tag title.

Rating: D+. Pretty boring match but I guess the idea here is that if the APA is leading the WWF’s army so give them something to make them seem important. That’s not a terrible idea actually and it’s better than another boring Hardys vs. Dudleys feud for the 7000th time. Not a terrible match and it did its job I guess.

And now for the important match from the same show.

Team WWF/WCW vs. Team ECW

It’s the 10 ECW guys listed earlier for their side. WWF is Big Show/Billy Gunn/Hardcore Holly/APA and WCW is Jindrak/Stasiak/O’Haire/Palumbo/Kanyon. WWF and WCW get in a fight before the ECW guys even get here. WCW is sent to the floor and here comes ECW. The ECW guys fight the WWF team and WCW stays on the floor. ECW clears the ring and calls out the WCW guys. And they all hug, officially forming the Alliance. No match obviously.

Vince comes out and wants to know what’s going on. Shane says watch the WWF guys get destroyed. Each one is thrown in and takes various finishing moves (including an F5 to Bradshaw from O’Haire). Shane says he can’t outspend Vince but he can outsmart him. Vince told Shane he was personally responsible for what happens out here and that’s true.

He’s responsible for ECW being here tonight and for the merger of WCW and ECW. Vince’s jaw is further into the Earth’s crust with every word. At Invasion, it’s the two companies against WWF. Oh, and here’s the new owner of ECW: Daddy’s Little Girl, Stephanie McMahon. The place ERUPTS at that. Vince’s eyes roll back in his head and here’s Stephanie, looking drop dead gorgeous in a pink dress. I think that’s why I loved this show when I was 13. Shane and Stephanie pose to end the show. Now THAT is how you end a TV show.

We’ll jump ahead a bit to the team in its dying days at Wrestlemania XVIII.

Tag Team Titles: Dudley Boyz vs. Hardy Boyz vs. Billy and Chuck vs. APA

Saliva plays the Dudleyz to the ring which gives us the VERY nice image of Stacy in the Dudley attire dancing to the song. I’ve always thought she never looked better than she did in those outfits. Billy and Chuck are defending and this is elimination rules. Bradshaw jumps Chuck to start but Billy saves him from the fallaway slam. Instead it’s Billy taking it as it’s all Bradshaw so far.

A big belly to back suplex puts Chuck down again and it’s off to Faarooq. The crowd is eerily silent for this. Chuck clips Faarooq in the jaw with a right hand and it’s off to Billy for some choking. Billy loads up the Fameasser but gets caught in a wicked powerslam. Back to Bradshaw as things break down a bit. Billy tags in D-Von but the APA breaks up a 3D attempt. Faarooq hits a spinebuster on Chuck on the floor and there’s the big Clothesline to Billy, but Bradshaw walks into the 3D for the elimination.

The Hardys and Dudleys start fighting for old times’ sake before Matt and Jeff start beating on Chuck. The Dudleys load up a table but the Hardys dive on them to slow it up. Back in and there’s the Whisper in the Wind to Bubba. Stacy gets up on the apron and pulls up her shorts to distract Jeff, only to get spanked and kissed. A Bubba Bomb slows down Billy before Bubba chokes on Jeff with his shirt.

Things finally calm down a bit until we get to Jeff vs. Bubba again. With D-Von’s help, Bubba manages a backdrop to put Jeff down again and puts on a chinlock. D-Von comes in and runs over Jeff before pounding away in the corner. A belly to back suplex gets two and it’s back to Bubba. Having a regular tag match between these two is probably the best idea given how lame Billy and Chuck were in the ring. Bubba stands on Jeff’s crotch in the Tree of Woe before tagging in D-Von for some choking.

A clothesline by Jeff allows for the hot tag to Matt, only to see him immediately run over by Bubba. The backsplash misses of course though and Matt tries to speed it up a bit, only to get caught in What’s Up. Before D-Von can dive though, the champions remember they’re in this too and shove D-Von through the table on the floor. Matt pops up and it’s the Twist into the Swanton for the pin on Bubba, leaving us with Billy and Chuck against the Hardys.

A Side Effect puts Billy down and there’s Poetry in Motion for good measure. Chuck gets the same along with a Twist of Fate. Jeff adds in the Swanton but Billy sneaks in with a Fameasser on Jeff but Chuck can only get two off o it. Instead it’s a belt shot to Jeff’s head for the pin by Chuck to FINALLY end this.

Rating: D. This was only thirteen minutes long but MAN ALIVE was this a chore to sit through. There was no need for this to be on the card and everyone from the commentators to the fans had no interest in it. The only good thing about this was how insanely hot Stacy looked. This could have easily been cut and made this already bloated show a bit easier to sit through.

The APA even had a match named after them. From Vengeance 2003.

Bar Room Brawl

Shannon Moore, Doink the Clown, Faarooq, Bradshaw, Brother Love, Nunzio, Matt Hardy, Chris Kanyon, Danny Basham, Doug Basham, The Easter Bunny, Sean O’Haire, John Hennigan, Orlando Jordan, Funaki, Los Conquistadores, The Brooklyn Brawler, Johnny Stamboli, Chuck Palumbo, Matt Cappotelli, and Spanky.

There’s a bar set up in the arena and we’re just going to fight in there. Los Conquistadores are Rob Conway and Johnny Jeter in case you’re wondering. Aaron Stevens is the Easter Bunny. He was on Smackdown for a cup of coffee as Idol Stevens in like 05 or 06. McCool managed him. John Hennigan is more commonly known as John Morrison, and this Doink is played by Nick “Eugene” Dinsmore.

In essence, this is a big OVW party as a ton of these guys were in OVW at the time. Most of the jobbers don’t get intros. Spanky is up on the bar dancing. Bradshaw says the rules are that the last man drinking wins as we’re testing the toughness and their livers. Ok that’s creative. Brother Love wants to pray before we start. Naturally it’s just a massive fight with no rhyme or reason to it. The Easter Bunny is drinking bears and getting punched. This is wrong.

O’Haire beats the APA up with pool cues. This is idiotic. Brother Love beats up Shannon Moore. I’d think that sums up why no one buys him. The Easter Bunny goes through a window. A bunny watching this would be traumatized for life. Hardy can’t break a table which is kind of funny. There’s nothing of any kind of logic going on here at all. Funaki passes out from beer. Bradshaw beats up Brother Love and I guess that gives him the win. He’s the last man standing even though Farroorq is standing next to him.

Rating: N/A. This was a waste of about 5 minutes. Moving on.

They had to try to beat up another tag team at No Mercy 2003.

Basham Brothers vs. APA

This is about the APA hurting the Basham’s manager Shaniqua. The Bashams are named Doug and Danny, which are the names of my uncles so I’ve always liked this team. Bradshaw is blonde here which doesn’t work for him at all. He and Doug start things off but it’s off to Farrooq quickly. Off to Danny who has no luck, just like his brother. Were they brothers? I know they really aren’t but were they on screen? I’m not sure.

Doug gets in a shot to take over but his splash hits Farrooq’s knees and a brawl breaks out. Cole and Tazz get into a stupid argument as the Dominator is escaped. The Bashams hit a double belly to back suplex for two and Farrooq is in trouble. Bradshaw runs in to try to help his partner, because doing it a minute ago worked oh so well.

Off to a chinlock to eat up a few minutes until Farrooq hits a spinebuster and makes the hot tag. Bradshaw cleans house and hits the powerbomb for two on Danny. Everything breaks down and it’s Last Calls (fall away slam) all around. There goes the referee and Bradshaw hits the Clothesline. Shaniqua comes in and hits Bradshaw with a club of some sort for the pin.

Rating: D. The match wasn’t terrible I guess, but what in the world was the reason to give this nine minutes on PPV? Also why did we have to see Shaniqua in a dominatrix outfit? The match should have been on Smackdown or cut in half, but that’s the danger of single branded PPVs. The Bashams were the flavor of the month on Smackdown while the APA would split in March.

We’ll wrap it up with the team having one last shot at glory at Wrestlemania XX.

Smackdown Tag Team Titles: Too Cool vs. Basham Brothers vs. World’s Greatest Tag Team vs. APA

That would be Scotty and Rikishi who are defending coming in. One fall to a finish again. Bradshaw and Shelton start things off with the Texan taking him down with a shoulder and getting two off an elbow drop. Doug Basham comes in to beat up Shelton now and it’s off to Danny. Shelton tags in Haas for a slam onto Haas’ knee in a cool spot. Scotty comes in to fight Charlie as this is going nowhere.

In another creative spot, Scotty skins the cat but lands in the Shelton jumps over Charlie’s back to land on Scotty for two. Charlie tags off to Doug for a kick to Scotty’s face. The hot tag brings in Rikishi to clean house and knocks Shelton to the floor to break up the German suplex. Charlie gets a Stinkface and Bradshaw launches Doug to the floor with a fallaway slam. There’s the Clothesline to Danny but Bradshaw walks into a Samoan Drop. Rikishi sits on Danny to end it and retain.

Rating: D. Whatever man. Seriously, I wouldn’t have remembered this match if you put a gun to my head, just like with the other tag title match. They’re just not interesting at all and there was nothing here to remember at all. There needed to be just one set of tag belts at this point and these matches make it painfully obvious.

The APA isn’t a hard concept to figure out. They drink, they fight, they drink some more, then they destroy a bar in Rhode Island. This is an idea that has been around for decades and it’s always going to work, especially if you have two monsters like Faarooq and Bradshaw to hand out the beatings.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book on the History of the Royal Rumble at Amazon for just $3.99 at:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PZ1GR7E

And check out my Amazon author page with wrestling books for under $4 at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

Now that I’ve actually listened to the whole thing, here are some far more detailed thoughts.  I basically just jotted down notes while listening so I’m skipping over a lot of stuff when he went into detail.

Punk talked about having offers for sponsorships but WWE said no, then gave them to Lesnar.  Brock having sponsorships ties back into the UFC character.  Punk having them would look like when they put Spider-Man 2 logos on the bases at ball games.  It wouldn’t have worked.

Vince freaking out over UFC is ridiculous.  Do “Lion’s Den”, “Brawl For All” or “Ken SHamrock” ring any bells?

Punk talked about Vince being out of touch.  That’s been known for 20 years and he’s been fine.

He said Cena gets mainstream stuff that Punk doesn’t get.  Could this have anything to do with Cena being the All-American boy while Punk is a loudmouth covered in tattoos?

Punk talked about fans never being happy no matter what he says.  As someone with a VERY small presence online, he’s 100% right.  You’re NEVER going to please everyone and that’s all there is to it.

He talked about making money off merchandise and WWE making far more.  Here’s something that I’ll be saying a lot: that’s standard business.

Like here for instance: Punk thinks he’s worth X, WWE thinks he’s worth Y. Punk signed for Y and worked for Y. Now if he thinks he should get more that’s fine, but he agreed to that salary and that’s all he’s entitled to.  THis will be another recurring theme.

Mentioned having a concussion and the concussion tests being bogus.  If that’s true then….I’m not sure what to do about it.

I agree on wanting a three way main event at Wrestlemania XXIX. Punk vs. Undertaker for the title could have worked as well, but Rock vs. Cena II made a FORTUNE so there was something to it.

Punk says he made himself work through it but then complains about the outcomes? Yeah he wants to be the best, but there are consequences to that.

I have no issue with him wanting to be cleared by a doctor after elbow surgery when WWE cleared him anyway. It’s his body and he deserves to have that peace of mind.

The Straight Edge Society was good, not great. Big Show shouldn’t have destroyed him that fast though.

“Shouldn’t they be trying to make money with everyone?” Indeed they should.

Yes Punk beat Cena in merchandise sales and it’s impressive. Now make it last longer than a few months.

He says the Shield was his idea. Wanting to keep him, Punk wanted Hero as the third guy which I’ve heard before. Hero would have bombed in the stable.

Ryback stuff is interesting but nothing shocking really. Calling him steroid guy is interesting but he doesn’t say he saw it or anything so it’s speculation.

As for the TLC with Ryback, yeah that’s a bit nuts but again Punk probably could have shot it down (Punk had knee surgery and they were rushing him back for the TLC match then the Rock feud/rematch/Mania when he wanted time off after dropping the belt).

Wanting time off after losing the belt after holding it that long is more than reasonable. No one needed the rematch at Elimination Chamber. Saying he wasn’t going to get a rub off the Undertaker match is bogus given its history. It was better than Brock vs. HHH and about the same as Cena vs. Rock. It didn’t blow either away though. Saying he should have gone on last and saying pay him more for it being great is nonsense. He signed the contract for it and knew what he was getting paid for it.

Talking about asking questions etc., again, that’s fine but sometimes there are consequences for speaking your mind. The part timers thing still doesn’t hold up due to financial reasons.  They get those spots because they’ve earned them at the box office.  There are a lot of people that work a lot of dates and they’re not getting those spots.  WHy shouldn’t, say, Sheamus get that spot?  He works most dates but you don’t hear him complaining about part timers.

He said the casual fans are going to stop caring if he’s always losing the major show matches. As for the stock in the eyes of the casual viewer, if you only have a few chances to showcase your talents, it’s going to go up. Brock vs. Punk was Match of the Year and in matches like those, the winner is an afterthought.

Punk vs. Ryback again didn’t need to happen again after Punk vs. Lesnar. I’m with Punk on that one. He’s right on HHH vs. Axel too as that was ALL about HHH like it always was.

Punk blocking WWE on Twitter is hilarious.

He talked about no one remembering the best match at Wrestlemania because it’s all about the main event.  I present Wrestlemania 24 and 25 to say that that’s nonsense.

As for Wrestlemania XXIX pay (Punk says he should have made as much as the other top names because his match was best), that’s his opinion and it’s all he’s basing it on. He also said that Wrestlemania draws instead of the stars.  Wrestlemania isn’t the entirety of the draw and look at Wrestlemania XXIII and XXVIII if you want proof.

Not knowing where pay is coming from with the new Network stuff is indeed ridiculous.

The doctor not cutting the thing out of his back: again, it’s his body and if there are all those issues, he should yell about it.  Or, go find a non-WWE doctor to cut it out if that’s all he needed.

Hoping to channel Foley’s run in 2000 in order to get a Wrestlemania main event slot is pretty freaking stupid. He’s done all this before but it didn’t work so why would he think it would now?

It was clear that Punk was hurt in the Rumble. He said he had a concussion, they gave him a way out, he kept going. Same problem as before.

As someone who takes pride in never taking drugs/drinking/smoking etc, I’d be glad to take whatever drug test they give me.  I get that it’s not the point, but just do it and move on.  That takes ten seconds.  He’s right about fixing his injuries now but he put a lot of that on himself.

Big meeting with Vince/HHH: they’re above Punk, as they’re bosses. HHH does NOT need to wrestle Punk. He’s right about three years ago though. There’s one main event at Wrestlemania….most of the time.

So the WWE doctor was right about antibiotics but the wrong ones.

Firing him on wedding day…..yeah that’s lame. The no compete clause for UFC is laughable.

Finally, Punk says he’ll never have a working relationship with them again.  I would point you to Bret Hart as United States Champion for WWE in 2010.  Imagine that say, ten years ago.

So yeah, WWE did some stupid stuff, but at the end of the day, so many of these problems come down to Punk being hard headed and trying to get their attention with his hard work. Yeah he worked hard, but if they haven’t reacted to it yet, why in the world would he think they were going to again later?

At the end of the day, Punk sounds like Jim Cornette (and remember that he’s basically my idol in wrestling): he thinks he’s right on everything (and he is on a lot of them) but if you want to be in the big wrestling company, you have to go along with some of the corporate stuff. They all have to go along with things they don’t want to because they have thousands of stockholders to please. Much like with not being paid what he thinks he’s worth, that’s life in business.

One thing I want to emphasize: this was NOT him bashing WWE for two hours. This is him saying his version of what happened (make sure you keep that in mind. This is all from Punk’s point of view and perspective. The company has its reasons for doing things and their side should be heard as well) and voicing some of his complaints. He doesn’t rip on the talent, he doesn’t rip on the wrestling. Instead it’s him criticizing a lot of their decisions in terms that make sense.

However, all that being said, I’ll go back to the Cornette point: if you want to work for a major company and get major checks, you have to give up stuff. Punk wanted to prove he was the best at everything and he did to a degree. WWE didn’t reward him directly for that, but there was never any guarantee on their part. Assuming they paid him what they promised to in his contract, they owe him nothing from a business standpoint.

Some of the medical stuff I’ll completely go with Punk on, but if his back is that messed up, he should have gone to another doctor on his own if WWE wouldn’t do it. That’s more common sense than anything else. If WWE was pushing him too hard though, Punk should have asked for the time off. WWE gave him chances to take it off but Punk soldiered on. That’s on him.

Overall it’s a VERY interesting interview and well worth listening to in full (it’s readily available on Youtube) but don’t immediately agree with everything Punk says, because a lot of it needs to be taken with some major grains of salt. Either that or saying “Punk, that’s not how business works so quit thinking you’re more valuable than everyone else.” Punk was indeed a top star and white hot, but Cena and Rock are bigger stars no matter how you look at it. He has a point in some of the booking criticisms, but some of them come off as Punk having a swelled head. This is going to be talked about for a LONG time though and I’d heavily recommend that you listen to it yourself.  It flies by.

So CM Punk was on Colt Cabana’s Art of Wrestling podcast and went OFF on WWE, Vince, HHH and everything about them in one of the best rants you’ll ever hear.  You probably should listen to it in full, but here’s the most detailed synopsis I’ve found so far.  THis is a long one but totally worth the time.

No I didn’t write this myself if that’s not clear.  My thoughts are at the bottom.

Source: http://www.cagesideseats.com/wwe/2014/11/27/7298557/cm-punk-story-walking-out-on-wwe

• He says that while people have remarked time and again that he couldn’t change anything while sitting on his couch in Chicago he disagrees because it almost took him doing exactly that for meaningful change to occur. He indicates that while they may have done some things to spite him, he’s really happy that certain things happened the way they did. He doesn’t outright say that the Daniel Bryan run through WrestleMania 30 was because he left but he definitely hints at as much.
• “It’s okay to be bitter about some things. That’s how you work through stuff.”
• He remarks that he’s the happiest he’s been in a really long time. “I’m the f****** happiest I’ve been in I don’t know how long, at least three years, legitimately. I find these other things that have made me happy and I thought this thing that I loved, that I thought I loved, it just made me so miserable. All the time, it made me miserable. I guess the black and the white of it, when you boil it all down, the essence of it, was I was miserable, I was unhappy, f*** it! I made myself happy. I left. That’s what it boils down to. It wasn’t an easy decision to make but it was also a long time coming.”
• He said there are many assumptions, like he was disgruntled with his creative direction, he was injured, he was mad about working with Triple H. “There’s an element of truth in all those things but I can’t say there was one big thing that led to my decision.” He does say that the biggest was his health.
• He despises the term “pipe bomb” now because everyone refers to promos as that now.
• People were calling him about sponsor money after the pipe bomb and he pitched it to Vince McMahon, who wouldn’t sign off on it. Then Brock Lesnar came in and was allowed to have sponsors on his wrestling gear.
• The story behind the pitch to WWE on walking out with Chael Sonnen at a UFC show and how it would have been good business. Vince told him someone might die in a fight and there’s no way they could let him go. Vince was also apparently appalled at the idea of women fighting in the UFC.
• He says the environment is “creatively toxic” and gives examples of issues like pitching something to Vince, being told “no,” and seeing John Cena doing that exact thing a week later.
• For the fans who are cool fans of his and who would like to hear an explanation, he is giving it to them right now. For those who were demanding it and calling him a quitter, those people can go to hell. For that matter, just because you bought a t-shirt doesn’t entitle you to anything and you didn’t make him and WWE didn’t make him. “WWE was a f******pit stop.” He said he’s not defined by his job, and no one should be.
• “That place should be the happiest place to work and they use that as some bizarre mindf***. ‘Go out there and have fun!’ It’s like ‘f*** you, this place sucks, and on top of that, you’re not f****** paying me nearly enough to do this s***.”
• He brings up the WWE Network coming out and how he spent months asking questions and wasn’t told anything.
• He rails on WWE for how they treat wrestlers as far as concussion protocol goes, revealing that he was working through concussions (he got one in the Royal Rumble too, and the testing for it was a joke) and a knee injury and messed up ribs. He was still in a mindset of doing what was best for “the boys” so he gutted out a lot of situations he definitely shouldn’t have.
• When The Rock came back, he said he wanted to work babyface against a strong heel so Punk was given the choice to either turn heel or drop the WWE title to Daniel Bryan. He was told that if he turned heel and did the job, he would be owed one. So he made the sacrifice, one he admits wasn’t that big of a sacrifice. He does say he tried to politic his way into the main event of WrestleMania, making Rock vs. Cena into a three-way before they booked him against Undertaker.
• Punk talks about WWE plans to get him a heater after WrestleMania and he reveals The Shield was his idea, believe it or not. They wanted a heel stable that would have included Punk, Big Show, Daniel Bryan, and Seth Rollins. So he pitched that they pick three guys from developmental to create the stable. They asked who he wanted and he said “Rollins, Dean Ambrose, and Chris Hero.” Triple H vetoed Hero and they put Roman Reigns in that spot instead. The idea was to put The Shield with Punk but plans changed.
• He says the Ryback program took years off his life because of how green he is. He also calls Ryback “steroid guy” because “I call it like I see it” and reveals that Ryback kicked him in the stomach so hard during a match it broke his ribs and he never got an apology or call about it.
• “I wrestled that match with Undertaker at WrestleMania with the biggest f****** chip on my shoulder because I knew it was going to be better than Brock Lesnar vs. Triple H and The Rock vs. John Cena.” They admitted that he should have went on last and he got “so f****** mad” before demanding that they should pay him like he went on last and they didn’t.
• He harps on wrestlers not taking a stand against the machine, going along with stories that don’t make any sense for anyone. He said the only people who say anything are Cena and maybe Randy Orton.
• His response to being told they wanted him to do the job to Brock Lesnar was to wonder who was coming to work the next day and, of course, being told that he would but Brock wouldn’t and there wouldn’t be a rematch at the next show. So he found a way to get excited about doing what they asked, working with Chris Jericho at Payback and Lesnar at SummerSlam, thinking it would help his case for the main event of WrestleMania the next year.
• He takes a shot at Triple H not putting over Curtis Axel the way he had originally said he was going to, and wanting to work with him to help elevate him. Instead, they booked him with Ryback again and once again, Ryback injured him with a guerrilla press spot where he missed the table. That’s one of the things he’s bitter about.
• Confirmed: He s*** his pants during SmackDown late last year and tells the story of tweeting it and being told he couldn’t tweet that and had to take it down. Many realized and reported on Punk unfollowing the WWE Twitter account not long after. It turns out he blocked them.
• He complained about the pay he received from his WrestleMania match with Undertaker on the basis that he had the best match on the card and he should have been paid equal to everyone else on the card. When he found out that wasn’t the case, he was outraged by it because “no one else on that card could have laced my boots that night”. When Cabana brings up Rock being a huge movie star and that bringing in more fans, Punk says he doesn’t care and WrestleMania is what draws at this point and no one can tell him different.
• The treatment he received for a large mass on his back was laughable, with the doctor not doing much of anything about it as it grew more and more.
• He went into the Royal Rumble knowing that the plan for WrestleMania was for Batista vs. Randy Orton for the title to main event and his plan was to work so hard during the match that he would change their minds.
• There’s a great story of Punk telling Rusev backstage before the Rumble match that no one gives a s*** about him and he needs to forget that Punk is supposedly a big star and get in there and really make an impression.
• When he was told during the match that he would be eliminated by Kane, he initially responded with the idea that he would quit if Kane even touched him because his wrestler’s mentality kicked in and he wanted to finish the match.
• During the drive to Cleveland for Raw the next night, he was miserable and looked over at his future wife, AJ Lee, who he says he knew he was going to marry and just hadn’t said anything yet, and had an epiphany wondering what he was doing with his life.
• At Raw the night he quit, he went in and was told he was going to have to take a drug — he calls it a “p*** test” — test and considering the new policies they put in place so wrestlers who had failed previous tests could get strikes taken off their record, he was livid that he, of all people, would have to take a pIII test. He demanded to be taken care of for his various health issues and they wanted him to sign a bunch of papers and take the p*** test. That’s when he decided he was done.
• He reveals he called a meeting with Vince McMahon and Triple H initially said he would leave but Punk told him to stay. “I do not love this anymore, I’m f****** sick, I’m f****** hurt, I’m f****** confused, I don’t know as a business what we’re doing anymore, I… every day you tell me this is a team effort but every day it’s a f****** individual effort by me to find what’s necessary to even f****** come here. It’s not fun. I have zero f****** passion for this. I’m f****** concussed, I’m f****** hurt, and alls (sic) you care about is what segment I am and how soon I can f*(***** get my gear on and when I can pea in this f****** cup. And I don’t want to do it anymore.”
• He said he talked openly about bringing back Batista as a babyface being a horrible idea.
• When Triple H told him that Batista took the same p*** test they were asking Punk to take, Punk asked “did you” and got no response. “Look, I thought when I re-signed three years ago, Vince, I told you if I couldn’t be all that I could be you should f****** fire me, that if I was a fraud and I was anything less and fell short of the f****** mark… I sold more shirts than John Cena until I turned heel for you, and you said you owed me one.. I worked guys that were f****** dangerous and you said you owed me one. I did all these f****** things and all I wanted was the main event of WrestleMania and it’s fine if you don’t think that is me and that I’m that caliber of a f****** superstar but then you need to f****** fire me because I do not want to be here and I do not want to be anything less. I will go somewhere else and I will get more f****** over because I know I can. You have shackled me, you have creatively stifled me, you have made this a very toxic environment, I no longer want to be here.”
• “It boggles my mind how Daniel Bryan has not figured into your plans to be in the main event of WrestleMania because this is his f****** year. Just like two years ago it was my f****** year and I was white f****** hot just like he is now and what did you do? You fed me to this guy.” He said Vince responded to all this by saying it was just the concussion talking and that working with Triple H was like working in the main event. Punk says he turned to Triple H and said “All due respect, I do not need to wrestle you, you need to wrestle me. I do not want to wrestle you. I seriously resent you for not putting me over three years ago when you should have. That would have been best for business but you had to f****** come in and squash it. And then I had to lose to F****** Truth and Miz. It didn’t make any business sense then, it doesn’t make any business sense now, and I am in a position now where I can tell you that I don’t have to nor do I want to wrestle you at WrestleMania. I don’t care if I was supposed to win.”
• Punk reveals he was scheduled to beat Triple H at WrestleMania and he didn’t care. “I didn’t want to give him the F****** privilege. He says Triple H never liked him and while you hear stories on the dirt sheets about various things, whenever he was in a room with Triple H there were never good vibes. “The way he would always look sideways at me, the way he always treated me.” He says he thinks Triple H believes he’s a “piece of s***.”
• Triple H told Punk that he had the best match at WrestleMania 29 against Undertaker and that it was the main event. Punk said they can push that way of looking at it to the fans, but the main event is the match that goes on last and that’s all there is to it.
• He says the Batista vs. Randy Orton main event plan was from an old, out of touch mind and he was really, really stoked when they made the change and put Daniel Bryan in the match and gave him his moment.
• When Triple H again pushed that Punk was in the main event at WrestleMania 29, Punk asked if he made the same money as those who went on after him. Again, Triple H responded with silence.
• He said Vince had tears in his eyes and gave Punk a hug, one Punk reciprocated, albeit reluctantly. Then he turned to Triple H, who had extended his hand, shook it, and said “good bye” before walking out.
• He brings up people saying “oh my god, he walked out on his contract” and clarifies that he’s an independent contractor and he could have walked out whenever he wanted to. Plus, he didn’t do it in the middle of a program and he didn’t hold them up. There wasn’t anything advertised for him coming up. He walked when there was nothing for him.
• Vince called him a week after he walked out and asked if he was ready to come back to work. He told Vince “no” at that time.
• His wife, AJ, convinced him to go to a doctor in Tampa Bay and he looked at the mass in his back. He was immediately told that he had a staph infection. He was told he needed to go to a hospital and get on an antibiotic IV drip. He wondered what they would do with less time and they cut it out, and gave him antibiotics, an experience he describes as the most painful thing he’s gone through in his life. He was given three months of antibiotics and told that after working with a staph infection for three months, he could have died.
• After catching up on sleep and feeling a lot better, he got a call from Vince saying he was suspended for two months. After thinking of the timeframe, he thinks that his suspension will come up just after WrestleMania and okay, whatever. But then it came up and he didn’t hear anything. He heard from an investor call that Vince told investors he was “on a sabbatical”. It was then that he realizes he hadn’t received a royalty check.
• He tells the story of finding a royalty check from WWE and calling about what he should do about it. He also asked about the royalty check he had yet to receive and is told that said check was at the desk of a lawyer. He attempted to contact said lawyer and found no success. He says he got a bunch of butt dials from various people and how he called about the royalty checks. He was given the runaround from literally everyone.
• He put the royalty check issue on the backburner because he was getting married and the Blackhawks were in the playoffs and he had a lot going on in his personal life at the time, like planning his honeymoon. Triple H texted him on June 11 asking if he had time to talk. He was upset about this, and said he had a honeymoon he was about to go to after getting married in two days. He asked for his royalties and promised to talk after his honeymoon.
• Punk then reveals that he was fired by WWE on his wedding day and that he believes it was a calculated move. He explains that he got a FedEx and the letter was ridiculous, saying he was in breach of contract on Jan. 27 and he was forfeiting his royalties and there was a no compete clause for UFC in it.
• He said he called a lawyer before going on his honeymoon, gave him his story, and the lawyer said “great, let’s get these motherf******.” He said he can’t talk about the terms of the settlement but does reveal he “got everything I wanted, and then some.”
• WWE tried to get him to sign a non-disparagement agreement and he said that he wasn’t the one who was talking, they were the ones who went out in Chicago and called him a quitter on television. He said he would only consider signing the agreement if they went to Chicago and apologized while admitting they lied, that he didn’t quit, and that they fired him on his wedding day.
• He says WWE was worried that he was going to go to TNA and his lawyer told them he isn’t interested in that and he despises professional wrestling now. He also said there won’t ever be a working relationship with WWE ever again.
• He said he’s happy training and being married and writing comics and just living his life now.
• He says he failed at his goal of wrestling in the main event of WrestleMania but he’s come to terms with it.

My thoughts on it: First and foremost, it’s obvious that Punk’s story is only his side.  I’m certainly not saying he’s lying, but you can only get so much truth out of one party’s version.

Here’s the big thing though: Punk can talk all he wants about how unfair things are and how he should have been in the main event all he wants.  That’s fine.  However, at the end of the day, Rock vs. Cena drew a fortune and Rock vs. Cena II drew a slightly smaller fortune.  Whether Punk was hot or not, those numbers are REALLY hard to argue against.  I still find his match with Undertaker very overrated though as I never bought him as a threat to the Streak, which I found Shawn and HHH (in the Cell at least) to be.  Yeah it was probably the match of the night but it was nothing excellent.

As for stuff I agree with him on, we’ll start with the match against HHH in 2011.  I’ve heard every possible argument about how HHH should have gone over and I don’t buy them at all.  While I don’t think he would have surpassed Cena full time as the top star, I see no reason for HHH to beat him there.  HHH has been a made man for years and was basically retired at that point, but he beat Punk anyway.  I’m not the biggest Punk fan in the world at times but that was ridiculous.  Yeah he got the long title reign out of it but, as he’s said, most of the time Cena was still in the main event (which he should have been a good deal, though not all of, the time).

As for him leaving like he did….I’m split on that.  He’s right that he didn’t have anything major going on, but if he’s right about Batista vs. Orton headlining Wrestlemania (which I don’t completely buy as true), he had a legitimate complaint.  It’s one thing for Lesnar or Rock or someone with a legitimate drawing record to come in and take a spot like that, but Batista isn’t a big enough star to validate that kind of power.  I would have liked to see Cena vs. Punk vs. Rock at Wrestlemania XXIX, but I see why WWE went the way they did.  As for XXX, as Punk said, it was Bryan’s year.

Overall he makes a ton of valid points, but a lot of it comes off like the same fanboy comments you hear all over the place.  Yes he was hot, but if that doesn’t translate to business, it’s not something that can be done.  That being said, I think they screwed up by having HHH beat him in 2011 and giving him the title as a consolation prize instead of as the big prize for him.

It’s very interesting stuff, but don’t immediately take it all as gospel.  Also, I know he said he’ll never be back, but would you have believed that Bret Hart would not only come back in 2010 but win a title in WWE?  Keep that in mind.

I think this one should be fairly obvious.

http://www.wrestlingrumors.net/kbs-review-giving-thanks-wrestling-way/32037/

Holiday deal on the books coming soon so stay tuned.  Or logged on or whatever you kids say nowadays.

Monday Nitro #195
Date: July 5, 1999
Location: Georgia Dome, Atlanta, Georgia
Attendance: 25,338
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan

We’re back in WCW’s home town now for the go home show for Bash at the Beach. At the moment there are only a few matches announced for Sunday but that’s better than we’ve been getting lately. The main story continues to be Nash stealing Gorgeous George and Savage being a psycho. Well that and the youth movement being crushed like a bug. Let’s get to it.

Opening recap of last week’s events and Savage accidentally taking Torrie back instead of George on Thunder.

The announcers do their welcome.

Juventud Guerrera vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

There’s a raised logo, presumably for Megadeth later or some stupid WCW thing, on the ramp and Chavo falls down on his way to the ring. Nice job WCW. Juvy mocks Chavo’s history with Pepe to start and gets the fans fired up. A shoulder drops Chavo and Juvy gives us a pelvic thrust. Juvy hammers away in the corner but gets dropped throat first across the ropes. Chavo follows up but takes a Stunner to put him across the ropes as well.

An early Juvy Driver attempt sends Chavo bailing as the announcers hype up Megadeth and Bret’s appearance for the third time already. On the floor now with Chavo taking over off a dropkick. Back in and we get the Gory Stretch into a Gory Bomb but Chavo drops an elbow instead of covering.

Guerrero goes up for the “I’m going to jump straight down so I can land on your raised boots” spot before they go into a pinfall reversal sequence, capped off by Juvy scoring a German suplex for two. A slam looks to set up the 450 but Chavo pops up to crotch him. Something like a sitout brainbuster plants Juvy but Sid and Savage come in for the DQ.

Rating: C. The match was fun while it lasted but Sid and Savage are almost a guarantee to bust up matches like this on Nitro anymore. Chavo is still one of the best cruiserweights without being over the top with his high flying. Juvy is starting to be insane and it works well for him when he gets it right.

Sid, wearing the World Title belt, powerbombs Juvy to set up the big elbow. The big man grabs the mic and says they want George back and won’t be held responsible for their actions. Nash and Torrie (looking as good as she ever has in WCW, which covers a lot of ground) pop up on screen. Kevin wants his belt back and thinks he should just beat up Sid tonight, but he’s been worn out this week. They banter a bit until George comes in wearing a Nash shirt, asking if she just heard Randy.

DJ Ran.

Gene brings out Ric Flair who comes out with his son. The boss takes the mic and says that since Scott Steiner has been running around the world, it’s time we have a new US Champion. That new champion will be….David Flair, due to him beating Nash by countout last week. Little Naitch comes out with a bunch of women who are all over the new champ. This brings out Buff Bagwell as balloons fall from the ceiling. Short version: Bagwell vs. Flair for the title tonight.

TV Title: Rick Steiner vs. Vampiro

Rick yells about beating Van Hammer this coming Sunday. The champ hammers on Vampiro like the mindless brawler he is before hitting a hard German suplex. Vampiro’s kicks go nowhere as he gets dropped with a Steiner Line. The Steiner Bulldog sets up that weird arm hold Rick has been using to end this quick.

Lenny and Lodi come through some doors with Lodi giving Lenny new tights. Lenny isn’t sure that they’ll fit but Lodi says he knows ever inch of him. The doors close to reveal the word “closet”. GET IT?

Video on Bret Hart leaving due to Owen passing away. The last shot is of an empty ring.

Here’s Bret for his first public comments in months. He’s been told he has all the time he wants so he’s going to try not to rush. Bret thanks the wrestling fans on behalf of the entire Hart Family for all the well wishes they received. WCW has given him a chance to collect himself and he appreciates that. Owen wasn’t your average wrestler and he was a great human being. Bret doesn’t think there’s anyone that can say a bad thing about him. They were the closest of all his brothers and never had a single argument.

Eric Bischoff has asked him what he wants to do but Bret isn’t sure where he wants to go with his life. The Hart Family has lived and died for wrestling and there really isn’t much left for him to accomplish. All these great athletes are retiring in 1999 and they all seem so happy. He’s afraid that his career will end in a tragedy but he just doesn’t know. Bret thanks all of his fans everywhere and all of the wrestlers he’s worked with over the years. He hopes he wasn’t too stiff and that’s about it.

Eddie Guerrero comes up to Doug Dillinger and shouts in Spanish. After switching to English, he says someone has stolen his wallet. It was a masked wrestler and Eddie wants them all lined up so he can pick out the culprit. I don’t see this ending well.

DJ Ran.

The Cat vs. Jerry Flynn

This is a kickboxing match because WCW is a stupid promotion. We have a round system with Round 1 consisting of a lot of circling and some light kicks. The fans boo this out of the building as the round ends with nothing to talk about. Round 2 starts with Cat going down to the mat and receiving a warning. Flynn tries a big kick and falls flat on his back because this is a joke. Back up and Cat hits some kicks to the ribs to knock Jerry down before a big shot to the head results in a DQ for hitting a downed opponent. Seriously, that’s the whole thing.

Flynn tackles Cat and they brawl some more. This was one of the dumbest things I’ve ever had to sit through.

Lodi vs. Van Hammer

Hammer jumps him from the start and knocks Lodi all over the place. Some jumping clotheslines and a big boot send Lodi out to the floor, where he steals Heenan’s water. Lodi is sent into the barricade but Lenny low bridges Hammer down to change things up a bit. Back in and Lodi actually busts out a hurricanrana, only to try again and get dropped onto the top rop. A superplex brings Lenny in and the cobra clutch slam ends Lodi. Total squash for the sake of unfunny comedy.

Dillinger tries to get all of the luchadors together for a show up but there are some communication barriers. Cops come in and clear things up as this is going to continue.

Gene brings out Roddy Piper because this show hasn’t gone low enough yet. Roddy agrees that rap is crap but wants to talk to Sting. Here’s a clearly fake Sting who is about an inch taller than Okerlund. Piper asks him about working with Savage but Fake Sting shakes his head no. Now Piper wants to see his real face but gets another no, earning Fake Sting a neckbreaker. Piper takes the mask off and we barely see the guy’s face.

Moving on to Sunday, Piper wants a boxing match against Buff Bagwell. Why a boxing match you ask? Well we really don’t get a reason for that but we’ve had bad kickboxing so why not bad regular boxing? If that’s not enough, JJ Dillon brings in Judge Mills Lane (a former TV judge and big time boxing referee) to referee Sunday’s fight “In California in Florida!” Lane’s words, not mine. I know this sounds stupid, but it’s not like Piper has wrestled a match in years anyway so why not just let him do nothing but punch?

Nitro Girls.

DJ Ran.

Rey Mysterio Jr./Konnan vs. Steven Regal/Fit Finlay

You know, for all the bad things that WCW did in 1999, they actually built up a nice tag division. Mysterio clarifies that HOOTY HOO is the call of the soldier. Apparently Regal and Finlay don’t approve of the soldiers and want to beat some peace into the rappers. Regal powerbombs Rey and catapults him into a clothesline from Finlay. There’s the rolling fireman’s carry as Rey is in early trouble.

The Europeans crank on a Mysterio leg each but the referee makes them break it up. Mysterio finally avoids a charge in the corner and makes the hot tag to Konnan to clean some house. Everything breaks down as Konnan does the usual, including throwing Rey into a Bronco Buster on Regal. Not that it matters as the West Texas Rednecks come in for the DQ.

Rating: D+. Finlay and Regal continue to work very well as foreign villains and they just look like they enjoy hurting people. The match was a way to have the Rednecks jump the soldiers and set up a match on Sunday. Who will be in that match hasn’t been announced yet but there are some combinations that could make for an interesting match.

US Title: David Flair vs. Buff Bagwell

David is defending in an angle that actually kind of works. Yeah he’s in over his head, but WCW acknowledging that he’s in over his head makes this a lot easier to sit through. Back when Erik Watts was thrown in over his head, they had to pretend he was good and it made things feel so stupid. At least here it’s making Ric look evil and corrupt and being played as an angle instead of reality.

Bagwell hammers away to start as you would expect, including planting David with a suplex. The champ finally hits a quick low blow to take over, only to run into an elbow and take the Blockbuster. Buff covers but Charles Robinson’s arm gives out. There’s a Figure Four on David but Ric and Arn come in. Buff beats them up too and puts the hold back on while small packaging Ric at the same time. Dean Malenko and Asya come in as well as this whole thing is a mess. Roddy runs out and nails Buff with something to give David the pin. Total mess but you had to expect that.

Time for Eddie to interrogate the luchadors. We have La Parka, Ciclope, Psychosis, Villano IV, a guy I don’t recognize, and Blitzkrieg. Everyone has to take their mask off but La Parka and Ciclope’s faces scare Eddie. He thinks Psychosis is a good looking guy. The guy I didn’t recognize is Cheetah Kid and apparently is Prince Iaukea under the mask. Blitzkrieg isn’t Hispanic and no one is happy with him. I’m assuming we’ll get more on this later.

The TV feed messes up and we have Hak and Chastity on a ladder. Hak was born in 1963 and started choking his doctor. He’s had to fight all his life and it’s all he knows how to do. Now he’s in WCW to get paid to fight. Hak lists off all the men he’s hurt and thinks there should be a junkyard hardcore invitational on Sunday because we can’t have hardcore matches in the arena anymore.

The rednecks come out and asks how many people here are good old boys, rednecks and people that just hate rap. They plays the song and that’s it.

Video on Savage and company.

Jersey Triad vs. Chris Benoit/Dean Malenko/Perry Saturn

Benoit runs Kanyon over with a shoulder and snaps off the Rolling Germans before we go to an early break. Back with Saturn getting triple teamed but ducking a charging Page, sending Kanyon into his partner with a clothesline. Off to Benoit who cleans house with clotheslines and a dropkick for Bigelow. He heads up but Page crotches him down and stomps away in the corner before tagging out to Kanyon. A slingshot elbow gets two on Benoit and it’s back to Bigelow for a bearhug.

Benoit actually climbs up Bigelow into a sunset flip and avoids the big sitdown splash. A double tag brings in Saturn and Kanyon with Perry cleaning house as everything breaks down. Malenko tombstones Kanyon and avoids Bigelow’s top rope headbutt, setting up a top rope Saturn splash to Bigelow, followed by the Swan Dive for the pin.

Rating: C+. It didn’t have a ton of time but you knew these guys were going to have a good match if they were given more than eight seconds. They had to give the small guys a win to set up their Tag Team Title match on Sunday, even though I don’t think Malenko has anything for the pay per view.

And now, Megadeth performs Crush Em live. After five minutes of barely understandable lyrics, the band is booed out of the arena. The lights go out and Goldberg’s voice says I’M BACK! We see his silhouette and go to a commercial. I’ll give Megadeth’s performance this though: at least their drummer was making contact, unlike Barry Windham earlier.

WCW World Title: Sid vs. Kevin Nash

Nash is defending of course but Sid has the belt itself. Before the bell, Nash tells Savage to get rid of the girls if he ever wants to see Gorgeous George again. So it’s Nash vs. Sid for that In Your House main event the world was waiting for. They head into the corner for some elbows to the challenger’s jaw followed by a running clothesline. Sid bails to the floor but Savage runs in after about a minute. The referee doesn’t ring a bell though, leaving Nash to fight off both guys. Sid decks the referee to officially throw the thing out.

Nash fights them off until Fake Sting comes out to beat him down. Cue the real Sting for the real save but Nash powerbombs him, thinking it’s the Sting that attacked him. The champ goes up the aisle and says what’s left of George is in his dressing room. Savage runs to the back and finds Torrie with George.

He gets in George’s face, demanding to know if he touched her. Savage turns to Torrie and smacks her in the face. A screaming Torrie points out that George is wearing a Nash shirt so Savage rips it off her and throws her into a hallway (George: “WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS???”) as the camera cuts off REALLY fast to end the show. I know I say a lot of stuff on these shows are horrible, but this was bordering on hard to sit through.

Overall Rating: D. Leaving out the disturbing ending, this was a horrible show. We’ve reached the point where WCW has gone from boring to stupid with stuff like Mills Lane refereeing a boxing match between Bagwell and Piper, two different music performances, Lenny and Lodi beating their story into your head and what felt like a comedy sketch about kickboxing. They’re on the verge of running scared at this point, but somehow this is easier to sit through than the shows from a month and a half ago.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book on the History of the Royal Rumble at Amazon for just $3.99 at:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PZ1GR7E

And check out my Amazon author page with wrestling books for under $4 at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

Today we’re looking at one of the most common wrestling characters of all time: the evil cowboy with Ron Bass.

Bass got his start in 1975 but we’ll pick things up on June 16, 1979 (my mom’s birthday actually) in Memphis.

Ron Bass vs. Pat Hutchenson

This seems to be Pat’s debut. The much bigger Bass nails Pat in the face to start and plants him with a slam. Some forearms to the back set up a suplex and a running powerslam ends Pat. Total squash.

Same territory with a better opponent at some point in 1981.

Jerry Lawler vs. Ron Bass

There’s a bit of clipping on this one but it doesn’t seem too bad. Bass is Jimmy Hart’s latest fighter in the war with Lawler. Ron takes him into the corner to start but Jerry comes back with a right hand to knock Bass to the floor. More punching ensues and Ron goes outside again. Back in and Jerry drops an elbow drop for two as Jimmy makes a save. Hart says this is No DQ which clears up the question I was about to ask.

Bass knocks Lawler to the floor and rams him face first into a chair. He does the same with the announcers’ table before a chair to the back has Lawler in trouble. We’re clipped a bit to Bass bringing in the chair for another big shot to the ribs. A swinging neckbreaker gets two and an atomic drop gets the same on Jerry. More clipping to Lawler getting all fired up and the strap comes down. A bunch of right hands drop Bass and the middle rope punch is good for the pin.

Rating: D. This was your standard “let’s punch each other a lot” matches and there’s a limit to how good those matches can be. That being said, this is Jerry Lawler in Memphis. He could sit in the ring eating a sandwich and the fans would cheer him until the end of time. That’s quite the compliment to him and this was his old standard, though the clipping made it hard to keep track of.

Some of Bass’ biggest suggest was in Championship Wrestling From Florida. Here he is at some point in Winter of 1983.

Kevin Sullivan vs. Ron Bass

Bass is a face here and has a broken hand. He hammers on Sullivan with the cast to start and Sullivan bails to the floor. Back in and a kick to the jaw sends Kevin outside one more time before Ron cranks on an armbar. Sullivan fights back up and stomps away but dives into a right hand to the ribs. Bass sends him into the buckle a few times and nails the powerslam, only to have Angelo Mosca come in for the DQ.

Rating: D+. Another kick and punch match here but I liked the energy they had here. It wasn’t a good match or anything like that, but just the way the crowd was going kept things moving. Bass isn’t terrible as a face, which is really odd to see after all the years I’ve spent seeing him as the evil cowboy.

Off to Starrcade 1984 with Bass in the NWA.

Mid-Atlantic Title: Ron Bass vs. Dick Slater

This is the other fallout match from the attack on Steamboat as it was Bass helping and Slater who was tied up in the corner. Bass is defending and is also half of the Mid-Atlantic tag champions with Black Bart. Slater knocks Bass to the floor to start and it’s time to stand around. Slater chases Dillon into the ring and out to the floor as we’re still waiting on any significant contact.

Back in and Slater suckers Bass into the corner before putting on the move of the night with a headlock. Back up and we go right back into the headlock as we wouldn’t want this to get too exciting. Bass bails tot he floor but gets pulled back inside very quickly. Back in and Bass rams Slater into the buckle and caught in the ropes where Bass punches him back and forth like….something that pops right back up when it goes down.

Slater comes back with some right hands and a boot over the face. After Slater is sent to the floor, Bass pounds him down but Slater starts Hulking Up. It’s short lived though as during the comeback, Slater hits the referee. Dillon comes in and gets beaten up as well but after a slam and legdrop to Bass we get the DQ.

Rating: D+. This wasn’t as horrible as some of the other matches, but again this was nine minutes of punching and headlocks. That’s one of the major problems with this show: everything is so basic and low level that it’s almost impossible to get interested in anything. Also great job here of having Slater get revenge: by losing.

From the next year’s Starrcade.

Ron Bass vs. Black Bart

This is a Texas Bullrope match and if Bass wins, he gets a five minute bullrope match with JJ Dillon, his former manager and Bart’s current manager. You win by pinfall here. Bass immediately hits him in the head with the bell on the rope and Bart is in trouble. Bart is busted less than a minute into the match and Bass pounds him in the head with the bell over and over.

Bart tries to punch his way out of the corner and gets choked with the rope for his efforts. Bass pounds in more shots to the head as we have a recurring theme to this match. Bart finally gets in a bell shot of his own to bust Ron open, but after a few more he misses a charge and goes flying to the floor. Bass keeps pounding away with the bell on the floor, including with a shot off the apron. Back inside and you can insert your own NEEDS MORE COWBELL joke here.

Bass wraps the rope around Bart’s neck and pounds away as the match somehow gets even more repetitive. Both guys fall down as JJ, clad in a tuxedo t-shirt, screams at Bart to get up. Another bell shot sets up a crotching from Bass with the rope. A HARD bell shot to the head has Bart down yet again. Ron pounds on him on the mat but has to stop to yell at JJ, allowing Bart to get back up. The Black one misses a charge in the corner though and a middle rope bell shot from Bass is enough for the pin.

Rating: D+. I wasn’t wild on this one. The big problem here is that it’s the same stuff over and over and over again, meaning it gets really dull after the first few minutes. Some of the bell shots looked great but when you have like thirty of then in an eight minute match, they kind of lose their effectiveness. Not terrible but it’s the epitome of a one idea match.

As a result of that win by Bass, we get this.

Ron Bass vs. JJ Dillon

This is a five minute bullrope match and JJ jumps Bass as the bell rings. JJ chokes away with his boot and hits Bass in the head with the bell. Then he hits Bass again with the bell. Now JJ mixes things up by hitting Bass in the head with the bell. They FINALLY do something else as JJ chokes him down with the rope, only for Bass to make a comeback and slug JJ down with the bell for a bit. A big shot to the head has Dillon down but the referee gets bumped. Bart comes back in and piledrives Bass, giving JJ the cheap pin.

Rating: F. What was the point of this again? To give Bass revenge? I guess so, but I don’t call a few shots to the head with a bell and then getting beaten up by the guy he just beat getting revenge. I’m assuming JJ dumped Bass recently for Bart, but that’s one of those things that the announcers didn’t feel was important enough to explain to us.

Bass would head to the WWF as a much more standard evil cowboy. We’ll start on Superstars, January 24, 1987.

Gladiator/Jimmy Jack Funk/Ron Bass vs. Dan Spivey/Mike Rotundo/Blackjack Mulligan

Well that’s a team for you. On an interesting note, Mulligan is the father of the man that Spivey replaced in the US Express: Barry Windham. Not sure if there’s a point to this or not but whatever. Jesse says his report on Andre and Hogan is coming next week on Piper’s Pit. You have no idea how awesome this sounds to me. Ron Bass doesn’t like Mulligan. Yeah this went nowhere thank goodness. This is mainly about Vince arguing with Ventura so it’s more or less awesome. I have no idea who the Gladiator is but Mulligan pins him.

From October 28, 1987.

Ron Bass vs. Ricky Steamboat

This is a Wrestling Challenge match here, which is the equivalent of Superstars today. I don’t recognize that commentator. One of them is Mike McGuirk (female announcer), one is Nick Bockwinkel and I don’t recognize the third. I think it’s current TNA boss Bruce Pritchard. We’ll go with that. Bass is a cowboy and gets caught with a top rope chop to send him to the floor.

Bockwinkel talks about whether or not top rope moves should be banned. Give me a break. McGuirk is talking about how handsome/good looking Steamboat is. Ok then. Bass takes over and hits a chop for two. Powerslam gets the same. Swinging neckbreaker gets countered and both guys are down. Steamboat counters a suplex into one of his own. They slug it out from their knees and then ram heads. Sleeper is countered by Bass and they go to the floor. They brawl to a double countout.

Rating: F. Horribly dull match here as both guys were in about -5th gear the whole time. Steamboat was coming back from the time off where his wife had a baby (and he lost the IC Title as a result) so maybe it was rust. This was awful though and probably the worst Steamboat match I’ve ever seen.

Bass was in the opening match at the first ever Survivor Series in 1987.

Team Honky Tonk Man vs. Team Randy Savage

Honky Tonk Man, Harley Race, Ron Bass, Danny Davis, Hercules

Randy Savage, Jim Duggan, Ricky Steamboat, Jake Roberts, Brutus Beefcake

Honky doesn’t have Cool Cocky bad as his theme music yet which is a shame. It’s amazing how great the music got in the late 80s. After the heel entrances, Team Savage says they’re here to settle scores. This was a different time as almost all of the faces were friends by default as were the heels just because they were faces and heels. The feuds going into this are Honky vs. Savage and Race vs. Duggan. Other than that the guys are just random midcarders who are faces or heels on a team, which is a pretty cool idea.

The place erupts for Savage’s entrance. Even Jesse couldn’t deny how great Randy was and was a huge fan in his own right. It was clear they had to do something with him soon, and they certainly did soon enough. In the answer to a trivia question, it’s Beefcake vs. Hercules starting the first Survivor Series match ever. Beefcake struts a bit and not much goes on for the first 20 seconds or so.

Hercules (guess what he’s known for) runs Beefcake over but walks into Barber’s sleeper but he falls into his corner to tag in Davis, one of the lowest lever guys you’ll ever find who somehow wasn’t a jobber. He’s a wrestling referee. Seriously, that’s the extent of his gimmick. He’s a referee who cheated a lot and got fired. Savage and Steamboat (who are apparently fine after wanting to kill each other about eight months ago) take turns on Davis but Steamboat misses a charge and it’s off to Race, the current King of the WWF.

Steamboat chops Race in the head and man alive how amazing would those two be able to be in a long old school program? Steamboat skins the cat (I’ve asked this many times, but is that really the best name they could come up with for that? I mean, skinning a cat?) and sends Race to the floor before bringing in Duggan to pound away on Race, knocking him to the floor. Hacksaw heads out with him and they brawl to a double countout, making it 4-4.

Bass (a standard old school cowboy) comes in to face Roberts but it’s quickly off to Savage. A knee sends Bass into the corner and Savage is starting to roll very fast. Savage immediately goes after Honky due to the really bad blood between the two of them and it’s lets Bass get in a shot. Off to the IC Champion (Honky) who gets in some cheap shots but like any good heel, he tags out when Savage starts coming back.

Bass comes in again but a blind tag brings in Barber (Beefcake for you younguns) who hits a high knee for the elimination. Hercules comes in and the bad guys start working over Beefcake’s arm. Off to Honky with an armbar and then right back to Herc. Wisely they’re keeping that schmuck Danny Davis out of there. I guess he’s there because he works for Jimmy Hart but other than that there’s no logical reason for him to be there.

Beefcake tries to punch his way out of trouble but Honky stays on the arm. To say Honky wasn’t much on offense is an understatement as he barely looks to be cranking on the hold at all. Beefcake fights out of the hold but won’t tag because he’s kind of dumb. Davis adds the only thing he’s going to add the whole match and knees Beefcake in the back so that Honky can hit the Shake Rattle and Roll (swinging neckbreaker) for the pin on Beefcake to tie us up at three.

Off to Savage vs. Hercules with the power guy taking over. Davis comes in and things suddenly go downhill for Honky’s team. Yeah, a referee beating on Randy Savage doesn’t work. Who would have guessed? Honky comes in and gets elbowed in the head which lets Savage tag in Jake to pound away. The comeback doesn’t last long though as Jake charges into a boot in the corner and it’s off to Herc. That goes nowhere so here’s Davis and since his offense sucks (BECAUSE HE’S A REFEREE) Jake shrugs it all off and DDTs him to death, making it 3-2 (Savage/Steamboat/Roberts vs. Hercules/Honky).

Herc comes in and takes Jake down and Savage tries to come in for a save, which just allows the heels to double team Jake. Savage isn’t thinking here because of his anger, almost like…..a savage. Oh you’re very clever WWF. Honky hooks a chinlock and Hercules comes in to do the same. Jake hits a jawbreaker to escape and there’s the hot tag to Steamboat who cleans house with chops.

A top rope chop has Herc reeling and it’s off to Savage for the elbow. It’s just Honky left and Savage explodes on him, only to miss another charge (third one for Savage’s team) and let Honky get in some offense. That lasts all of six seconds as the beating continues. Jake comes in and pounds away on him, followed by Savage dropping a double ax. An atomic drop sends Honky to the floor and he’s like screw this and takes the countout. Can you blame him?

Rating: B. This was a really fun match with a good story to it. The fans HATED Honky and the idea of getting him caught at the end with no one to defend him had the fans going nuts. Honky vs. Savage was a great feud but it never had a blowoff due to a bunch of backstage stuff. Honky would somehow hold the title nine more months before perhaps the greatest end to a title run ever at Summerslam. This was a great choice for a first match ever for the concept too as it showed how the idea worked and gave the fans something to cheer about too. Really good stuff.

Here’s a match at a house show in Houston on December 10, 1987.

Ron Bass vs. Ricky Steamboat

Bass holds him off with a whip so the Dragon goes out and grabs a chair. Naturally Steamboat speeds things up and gets a quick sunset flip for two. The cat is skinned and Steamboat gets what we would call a rana for two. For some reason the cameraman wearing a Hulkamania shirt makes me chuckle. Bass takes over and gets a clothesline but walks into something like an enziguri (granted it hit the back but no one knew what it was supposed to be at this point anyway) to send Bass to the floor.

Back in and Steamboat grabs the arm to take the bigger man down. I know it’s basic but it’s about the smartest thing you can do so there’s a reason it’s that common. McGuirk is like Booker T as all she really says is an occasional move in the ring. Steamboat tries to speed this up again but walks into a hot shot to finally shift control to Bass. Piledriver gets two.

Bass hammers away with a knee drop (called Knee-monia by Doherty and making me want to take a knee to the head so I hopefully forget that joke) to the head and various other basic offense for two on a few occasions. Pretty weak swinging neckbreaker gets two. Off to the chinlock now and Steamboat’s face is all crushed up, making it look hilarious.

Here’s the comeback and Steamboat goes up for the top rope chop. Steamboat can’t keep anything going here as a clothesline takes him down again. Out of absolutely nowhere, Steamboat gets a cross body not off the ropes to end this. Surprising endings like those are always fun, especially for the live crowd.

Rating: C-. Never been a fan of Bass but it’s hard to argue against Steamboat in the late 80s. Not bad here but really just a way to kill about ten minutes. Steamboat would be gone in about five months and would head back to the NWA where he would win the world title in February of 89.

Bass also opened the show at Survivor Series 1988.

Team Ultimate Warrior vs. Team Honky Tonk Man

Ultimate Warrior, Brutus Beefcake, Sam Houston, Jim Brunzell, Blue Blazer

Honky Tonk Man, Bad News Brown, Danny Davis, Ron Bass, Greg Valentine

This is fallout from Warrior winning the title at Summerslam. Brunzell is subbing for Don Muraco who has left the company at this point. That’ll be a recurring theme tonight. Valentine and Beefcake starts us off, making it the second year in a row that Beefcake has opened for his team. It’s quickly off to Davis and the sleeper puts him out in less than a minute and a half. Well to be fair there’s no reason for him to be around anyway. Valentine charges right back in to continue the war of the original Dream Team, which I doubt most people would remember at this point.

Greg goes after the legs as is his custom, but since we’re only about three minutes into the match, the Figure Four is broken up. Well to be fair everyone says that Valentine doesn’t get warmed up for about ten or fifteen minutes so he’s still looking for his keys at this point. Off to the Blazer (played by then mostly unknown Owen Hart) who drops an ax handle onto Valentine, giving us the trademark slow fall.

Valentine goes for the arm (not a hammer lock which takes away the irony of it) but Blazer easily takes him down with a headscissors and brings in Brunzell. The Killer Bees were gone at this point so he’s just a guy in trunks. He’s a guy in trunks with a good leapfrog though as he clears Valentine with a lot of room to spare, only to get slammed down. Brunzell pops up and hits the dropkick but it’s off to Bad News. Sweet goodness was this guy born in the wrong generation. Imagine him after the rise of MMA, remembering that he’s a legitimate Olympic bronze medalist in judo.

Brown comes in like the headhunter he’s known as and kills Brunzell with a clothesline. Brunzell tries some basic stuff so Brown kicks him in the chest and beats on him in the corner. Brunzell misses a charge in the corner and the Ghetto Blaster (enziguri) gets the easy pin to tie things up. Brutus comes in and grabs Brown so Houston, one of the least intimidating guys ever, can come off the top with a double ax.

Houston misses a charge in the corner and Brown pounds on him like a stupid looking dancing white boy. A clothesline takes Houston’s head off and here’s Valentine. Make that Brown again and Valentine accidentally hits Brown. That ticks off Bad News and he walks off. That’s not a face turn. He just didn’t like anybody. Houston tries to steal a pin on Valentine but Greg is like boy please.

Off to Bass in a match that I think happened before in the NWA. A rollup gets two for Houston but he charges into another boot in the corner. That’s a popular move in this match. A middle rope cross body gets two for Sam and a forearm from Bass takes his head off for two. Houston’s monkey flip is countered into a powerslam and he’s gone, thank goodness. The guy is just not interesting or good at all.

Warrior comes in to fire the crowd up and attacks everyone left on the other team (Valentine, Bass and Honky vs. Warrior, Beefcake and Blazer at the moment). Honky comes in because he’s not that bright and there he goes, flying through the air off a shoulder tackle. Off to Bass who gets slammed down and hit with a Rocket Launcher from Blazer. Honky comes in and is cross bodied down immediately. A monkey flip and dropkick have Honky in even more trouble so it’s off to Valentine.

Owen gets crotched on the head of Valentine during a leapfrog but apparently Blazer has balls of steel because he suplexes Valentine down and drops a knee for two. Blazer goes up but Honky shoves him off, sending Owen down onto his knee. The Figure Four means a quick elimination by Valentine and we’re down to 3-2. Off to Beefcake vs. Valentine and Jesse mentions that these guys were not only a team but tag champions. Why is that such an afterthought?

Off to Bass who also has history with Beefcake but that isn’t mentioned here, despite it happening like three months before this. A headbutt keeps Beefcake down and it’s back to Elvis Man. His contribution is ramming Beefcake’s head into Bass’ boot and tagging in Valentine. Well no one ever accused him of being a ring general. After Warrior charges in like an idiot, it’s back to Honky for Shake Rattle and Roll, but Brutus backdrops out of it to start his comeback.

Back to Bass who hits a top rope clothesline to keep the advantage and brings in Honky who goes up. Beefcake punches him in the ribs because Honky is about as fast as Arn Anderson at going to the top. Beefcake wins a slugout and we get the eternally funny selling of an atomic drop by Honky. There’s the sleeper but Man dumps them to the floor and they fight to a countout.

This leaves us with Valentine and Bass vs. Ultimate Warrior. Gee I wonder what’s going to happen. A double clothesline puts Warrior down but Valentine can only get two. More double teaming works for a bit but Warrior gets to the ropes and starts shaking. Another double clothesline doesn’t work and an ax handle each gets the two pins to make Warrior the sole survivor.

Rating: C. Not the best match in the world but for a midcard match it was fine. Warrior was insanely over here (as well as insane in general but that’s another talk for later on) and the fans erupted for his comeback at the end. The rest of it is just ok and there’s nothing wrong with that. This was the right choice for an opener though.

Bass’ last feud in the WWF was with Brutus Beefcake, capped off with this match at Saturday Night’s Main Event XIX.

Brutus Beefcake vs. Ron Bass

This was a fairly brutal (for its time) feud as Brutus had cut up Bass’ whip so Bass had used his boot spur on Brutus’ head, cutting him badly. They put a big red X on the screen with the word censored over it, even though Brutus moved around and you could see the cut anyway. That cost Brutus the IC Title shot he had at Summerslam. This is hair vs. hair.

I don’t think they’ve both been in the ring for more than 30 seconds yet. It’s pretty much all Brutus at this point and you know what happened because I said that. Bass gets a nice piledriver. There’s very little to this match at this point. Bass takes forever to go for the pin and after arguing with the referee he walks into a sleeper and of course he’s out in about 4 seconds.

After the commercial he cuts the back of his hair as Bass is apparently out cold for about 5 minutes from a 4 second sleeper. Dang he actually did cut it. Always nice to see them actually do what they’re supposed to do. Perfect timing that he wakes up just when the haircut is over isn’t it?

Rating: D+. This was pretty weak but not awful I guess. This was your run of the mill thing but Bass was your standard heel and Beefcake was WAY over so it works out fine I guess. This was ok for an opener and it does give a blowoff to the feud so it served its purpose in that sense.

Like I said, Bass isn’t exactly the most interesting character in the world but the mid 70s were a different time. He was good enough at what he did to stay employed and that’s more than you can say for a lot of wrestlers back then. That armless Pedigree finisher of his wasn’t half bad.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book on the History of the Royal Rumble at Amazon for just $3.99 at:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PZ1GR7E

And check out my Amazon author page with wrestling books for under $4 at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

Today we’re looking at someone a bit curvier in Maryse.

After a few years in developmental, Maryse debuted on the main roster in 2008. Here she is at Unforgiven.

Divas Title: Maryse vs. Michelle McCool

Michelle is champion. Michelle as a face just never worked. She’s such a natural villain and her pumping her fist doesn’t work at all. She hurts her knee going to the floor and Maryse works on it as we’re waiting for the people to get back from popcorn time to end this. Michelle works on Maryse’s leg in a heel hook but she gets a rope. The fans are all over this match already. A sitout gordbuster keeps the title on McCool.

Rating: D-. Michelle and Maryse are too hot to be a failure but the match was terrible. NO ONE cared and that was very clear. Nothing to see here and we’re moving on. Why this got almost six minutes was crazy but I’d assume that it was due to a long line at the Cena shirt booths. Horrible match.

Time for a TV match on Smackdown, September 19, 2008.

Divas Title: Michelle McCool vs. Maryse

Michelle is defending here and is still just the perky blonde. The title is brand new here too. Michelle takes her down to the mat with a front facelock but Maryse takes over with a headlock. McCool speeds things up and frustrates Maryse who can’t keep up with the champ. Maryse heads to the floor but she trips Michelle up and takes over.

A slingshot dropkick puts Michelle down and Maryse pounds away, only to get rolled up for two. Maryse cranks on a chinlock but McCool uses her height to get back out. Things speed up and a running flipping neckbreaker gets two for the champ. Maryse misses a charge into the corner and McCool hits Christopher Daniels’ Angel’s Wings to retain.

Rating: C-. It’s absolutely amazing how much more interesting a match like this is than the Divas of today. The main difference is that the girls here are athletes who use their athletic abilities in a wrestling ring. Today, we have girls who are mostly models who get some bare bones wrestling training but they look good in shorts. McCool, a chick who had only been wrestling full time for a few years at this point, looked more comfortable than Kelly EVER looked in her entire career. That’s a big reason why the Divas just stopped being interesting at all.

Off to Armageddon 2008 for the main thing the Divas are known for.

Maria/Mickie James/Kelly Kelly/Michelle McCool vs. Maryse/Jillian Hall/Victoria/Natalya

Santa’s Little Helper’s match here. The heels are in green and are elves I guess. Maria’s song is really catchy. I miss Michelle. Mickie vs. Maryse starts us off. Mickie keeps going after her and Maryse tries to pose. Off to Mickie vs. Natalya in the real fight here. Nattie is pretty new at this point. Kelly is Jewish and Striker calls her the Hot Hebrew. That sounds like a really bad coffee shop. The announcers are having a fun time with this. The match is totally pointless of course and it’s off to Maria. Somehow she gets compared to John Berzerker Nord. Everything breaks down and Michelle hits the Faithbreaker (Styles Clash) to end Maryse.

Rating: C+. Don’t bother trying to figure out if the rating is good because it isn’t, but there was a weird energy for this one and I had fun with it. Also Michelle in shorts and Maria with her energetic perkiness are never bad things. The girls looks hot and everyone was having fun in a nice breath of air before the main events. What more can you ask for?

We’ll jump ahead a bit to Night of Champions 2009.

Smackdown Women’s Title: Michelle McCool vs. Melina

This is a rematch from The Bash which was brought on by some bad acting. Michelle’s bra is sticking WAY out here. Melina gyrates like no one I’ve ever seen. Michelle is the first person to use her freaking brain and kicks Melina on her splits intro. And there’s your first botch as they mess up an arm drag. We get some kicks that don’t actually connect as I have a bad feeling about this match.

We hit the floor and are told that a slam of the face into the barricade is a DDT. Riiiiiiiight. Melina is laying on the apron and in a coole counter she pulls up onto the bottom rope to avoid a baseball slide. They’re hitting hard but at the same time, they’re botching the hell out of so many things. Michelle reverses a rollup into a rollup for the pin. At least it was short.

Rating: D. They were trying but this was just a mess and a half. They were botching stuff left and right with there being little flow or psychology at all. Michelle has gotten better which to be fair she couldn’t have gotten much worse. This was really bad as the two of them just do not have the chemistry.

Divas Title: Maryse vs. Gail Kim

Gail Kim is incorrectly called a two time Womens’ Champion. Gail slides to the corner to avoid a charge from the blonde and gets two off a bulldog. Maryse comes back with a kick to the face for two of her own but gets rolled up for another near fall. Kim goes up top but completely misses a top rope cross body to put both girls down. A victory roll doesn’t work for Gail and a quick DDT gives Maryse the title. This was nothing.

She even made it onto Wrestlemania XXVI.

Laycool/Vickie Guerrero/Maryse/Alicia Fox vs. Beth Phoenix/Kelly Kelly/Eve Torres/Mickie James/Gail Kim

Beth is in white here and man alive it REALLY works for her. She’s also a face here which is really rare. Vickie and Gail start with Kim getting shoved backwards. Vickie poses and when she turns around, it’s Beth. All the good girls take their turns on Vickie in the corner so she shouts at them. Michelle breaks up a pin by Kelly and we already begin the parade of finishers (Gail totally botches Eat Defeat), culminating with Beth ENDING Fox with the Glam Slam. Michelle saves Vickie from Beth with a big boot before putting Vickie on the top rope. The “Hog Splash” is enough to pin Kelly.

Rating: D. Laycool and Beth looked GREAT out there so it doesn’t fail for them. No one else was in there long enough to make much of an impression, but again it’s amazing how much better the Divas are at this point. They have personalities and actual emotions instead of just staring at cue cards and botching everything they do.

From Over the Limit 2010.

Raw Women’s Title: Maryse vs. Eve Torres

This is better than I’d expect it to be actually. This has gotten some great build over the past few weeks and due to a lack of matches they have to give it a lot of time. Maryse randomly starts crying for no adequately explained reason. We actually get some near falls. Eve hits some screwed up face plant into a rollup for the pin. Cole, Striker and Lawler make jokes about Eve and just lose it on commentary.

Rating: C-. For what you had to work with here and given what Divas matches tend to be, this was actually decent. I tend to start most Divas matches at a D or so, meaning this was pretty good. There was some actual drama and Eve won with a nice finisher. Solid little match.

From shortly thereafter at Fatal Fourway.

Raw Women’s Title: Maryse vs. Alicia Fox vs. Gail Kim vs. Eve Torres

Eve is in blue again so I can’t complain at all. Everyone is in this at once which does little to get my hopes up on this. Yeah I don’t care at all about this. Everyone goes for submissions at once but everyone breaks them up to play up the whole fatal aspect of this. The ropes can’t be used for breaks apparently.

I’d bet that’ll be compromised about a million times here. Eve hooks a camel clutch and Gail gets a Boston Crab on Alicia at the same time. Maryse runs her mouth off and Alicia blasts her. Gail hits a dropkick which Striker of course calls a Jumping Bomb Angel Double Stomp. I hate him at times. Eve hits a very fast neckbreaker on Maryse and doesn’t cover, instead hitting a bad moonsault. And Alicia Fox wins the title by stealing the pin on Maryse. Oh dear.

Rating: D. Seriously, are we supposed to care about Alicia Fox? She’s been on TV like once this year and is now the champion. I don’t get the appeal of her at all, but I guess someone does. I still don’t care about the division at all, but it needs to be merged with the other one to help it survive.

Maryse was on NXT Season 3, including October 26, 2010.

Maryse/Ted DiBiase vs. Goldust/Aksana

Aksana does look sexy in red. I’ll give her that. And just as the bell rings the video freezes. Ah there we go. The girls start us off. They yell at each other and Cole says his producer told him that if they’re talking let us hear them. AMEN! Maryse knocks off the horns and rips off the tail so now Aksana is just in a skin tight red suit. I’m sold.

It’s a mixed tag so the men have to fight each other. Of course we’re just talking about the wedding here which I guess makes sense here. We head to the floor with DiBiase being all ticked off. Why doesn’t he just grab the belt and run if that’s why he’s here? Maryse helps her man as Aksana plays cheerleader.

Goldust plays Ricky Morton for like a minute until the girls come in. The guys go to the floor and Aksana gets a small package out of nowhere for the pin. Is that her first win? DiBiase goes for the belt but Aksana slaps him and gets it back. The good people get away with it, proving that faces can get away with anything. Ventura and Heenan were right all along! Match ran about 6:30.

Rating: C. Not terrible and fine for a TV main event on a show like this one. This wasn’t your standard match where the guys did the majority of the work and the girls were in there for like 10 seconds. The girls were fairly decent out there which is surprising to me. Not a classic or anything but it did what it was supposed to do and didn’t seem that long.

Here’s a quick TV match from Smackdown on February 18, 2011.

Eve Torres/Beth Phoenix vs. Layla/Maryse

After the faces enter we take a break and get a clip of the first regular episode of Smackdown (remember that there was a pilot about four months earlier) from August of 99. Michelle has a bad foot so is out for awhile. Beth vs. Maryse to start. Michelle is on commentary and wants to know why Eve is the Divas Champion when Michelle got a pin also.

Off to Layla vs. Eve with the champion dominating. Michelle seems a bit irritated by Layla here as we continue to push the split. Eve fires away with kicks and Michelle gets off commentary. She limps up the steps and gets in the face of Layla. Beth hits her in the foot to bring her down. In the confusion, Layla and Maryse hit what I think was supposed to be a double superkick so that Layla can pin Eve at 2:27. No rating as this was mainly Layla vs. Eve but this was no worse than your usual Divas match.

We’ll wrap it up on Raw, July 25, 2011.

Maryse/Melina vs. Kelly Kelly/Eve Torres

At least they all look good. Eve and Maryse start and Eve hits a downward spiral and then dances before trying a standing moonsault for two. Maryse gives her a Stinkface and Kelly comes in. Everything breaks down and Melina misses a charge, allowing the K2 to end it at 2:51. Thank goodness I don’t have to rate it. Match was AWFUL but the girls looked good.

So yeah, Maryse is the definition of a blonde bombshell and that’s all she needed to be. She could have passable matches but she was around to make everyone jealous and do that cool thing with her hand. At the end of the day though, Miz goes home to her every night in one of the most appropriate pairings ever. Maryse was around at a time when you only had to look good and be able to have a decent match to be a top Diva and that’s about as far as she got.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book on the History of the Royal Rumble at Amazon for just $3.99 at:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PZ1GR7E

And check out my Amazon author page with wrestling books for under $4 at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

Another tag team that doesn’t get the love it deserves: Money Inc.

The team of Ted DiBiase and IRS would hook up in early 1992 and win the Tag Team Titles in a surprise at a house show against the Legion of Doom to get the titles off Hawk and Animal before Hawk went nuts. Here they are defending the belts at Wrestlemania VIII.

Tag Titles: Money Inc. vs. Natural Disasters

Money Inc. is defending and is comprised of Ted DiBiase and I.R.S. DiBiase and Earthquake start things off with the heels (Money Inc.) getting beaten down and the rich man being knocked to the floor. Off to Typhoon vs. I.R.S. For osme arm work by the big guy. Typhoon misses a charge into the corner and it’s off to DiBiase….who is immediately beaten down as well. Typhoon misses a splash against the ropes and falls over the top and out to the floor.

I.R.S. cranks on a front facelock for a bit as Ted hits an ax handle off the middle rope for two. A double clothesline puts both guys down as this match is DRAGGING. Everything breaks down and the challengers take over. A clothesline puts DiBiase on the floor and there’s the big splash from Typhoon. Jimmy Hart pulls Irwin out to break up the Earthquake splash and the champions walk out to retain the titles.

Rating: D-. I have no idea what the point of this was. The match wasn’t entertaining, it wasn’t good, and the match didn’t accomplish anything. I’m guessing this was supposed to be filler between the other matches, but we already had one of those and that’s what we’re about to get next. Nothing to see here at all.

Here’s an eight man tag with Money Inc. involved on June 3, 1992.

Tatanka/High Energy vs. Money Inc/Rick Martel

We’re in Canada here and this is one of those matches where you take two minor feuds and throw them together for one match. High Energy is Owen Hart and Koko B. Ware in bright baggy tights. Tatanka had one of his feathers stolen by Martel for no apparent reason. High Energy were quick challengers to Money Inc. IRS does his usual tax thing to get us going.

Tatanka is a Lumpee Indian which Gorilla says sounded like Lumpy Indian, like Chief Jay Strongbow. That was hilarious. Owen and DiBiase start which in their primes would have been incredibly entertaining match. Now they talk about someone that works for Coliseum Video who wants free stuff or something. DiBiase gets an armdrag and we stop to applaud. Another gets more applause from Martel.

Gorilla and Hayes are having a great time talking about nothing to do with this match at all. Bret is world champion apparently at this point. Everything breaks down and the faces clear the ring. Back in now and it’s Owen vs. Martel. Martel turns his back and Tatanka comes in instead to hammer away a bit. I think they had a match at Survivor Series or Summerslam over this. According to Hayes the Cornwallians (we’re in Cornwall, Ontario) have EXPLODED!!!

Off to IRS vs. Tatanka now with the undefeated dude taking over. Off to the Hall of Famer Koko now. Who would guess that of these six he and DiBiase would be the only Hall of Famers? Gorilla says Koko has put on 25 pounds. Hayes: “And they’re all in those pants.” Now we talk about suspenders. See what I mean about the commentary here? Koko gets a swinging neckbreaker to get himself out of trouble.

Apparently Hayes is eating hot dogs and French fries instead of paying attention. Now we talk about fish and chips. Tatanka vs. Martel now as the commentary here is rather interesting. We’ve been in this for about seven minutes now and they’ve talked about the match for maybe 2 minutes. DiBiase takes part of the tag ropes off to choke Tatanka.

Tatanka gets the tar beaten out of him for awhile while Gorilla and Hayes make fun of High Energy for not doing much. Front facelock by DiBiase and the referee doesn’t see the tag to Koko. Tatanka gets a suplex to break things up and it’s off to Owen vs. DiBiase again. Everything breaks down again and the legal men hit the floor. Koko knocks IRS to the apron and tries to suplex him back in, only to have DiBiase hook the foot and IRS gets the cheating pin again.

Rating: D+. This was just a six man match at a house show. It wasn’t horrible or anything but it’s nothing worth anything at all. DiBiase and IRS were decent champions but Ted was clearly not what he used to be. High Energy never was worth anything and the feud with Tatanka and Martel never clicked at all. Still though, it filled in 15 minutes and wasn’t horrible.

Eventually they had to defend the titles against the monsters known as the Natural Disasters. From July 20, 1992.

Tag Titles: Money Inc. vs. Natural Disasters

Don’t you see the connection here? This would be before Mania as Jimmy is with DiBiase and IRS here, despite being with Hogan and Beefcake earlier. Yeah that’s not confusing at all. Irwin’s promo implies this is after April 15 but that wouldn’t add up at all so maybe that’s an error. The champions, Money Inc, tries to leave before the match starts but that gets nowhere. Typhoon and DiBiase start us off.

Everyone goes in there at once and the fat guys do nothing but corner splashes for about two minutes. They follow this up with a BIG splash, just to add some variety. They try it again and Quake misses and hits the floor. No earthquake from it but whatever. DiBiase chokes him with a rope from somewhere. Nothing of note going on here as it’s mainly just punches and kicks.

LONG beatdown segment on Earthquake as the heels do their evil deeds. Crowd is relatively dead here until Quake hits a hiptoss and STILL doesn’t make the tag. We get a comparison of Earthquake to Undertaker which is a matchup that could have been interesting if the timing had been right. Quake was getting to the point of not mattering when Taker arrived.

Tag by Quake doesn’t count since the referee didn’t see it. Double clothesline by Quake as Hart is described as a monkey on helium. Hot tag to Typhoon and the crowd wakes up a little bit. Everything breaks down and the referee tries to get Hart out of the ring. IRS blasts DiBiase in the face with the briefcase and Earthquake drops an elbow….FOR THE PIN? This actually looks like the title change and with nothing else happening…yeah that was a title change.

Rating: D+. Boring match but the crowd popped for the title change, I think due to shock more than anything else. This was their only title reign as they would lose the belts back to Money Inc in about three months. The match was pretty bad but a title change back then was always a good thing. This was a house show mind you, so it’s not like this was well known or anything, making it an actual rarity.

Speaking of the Legion of Doom, here they are at Summerslam 1992.

Money Inc. vs. Legion of Doom

This is on the main card with no real fanfare at all. The LOD comes to the ring on motorcycles along with manager Paul Ellering and……dang it…….Rocco the Dummy. There’s nothing more to it than that: it’s a ventriloquist dummy named Rocco who was the team’s “inspiration.” DiBiase is in his white trunks which I couldn’t stand when I first did this show but for some reason they work for me now. Vince gets in one of my favorite lines ever: “The Legion of Doom is well known for their psychology in the ring.” I’ll pause for a minute to let that one sink in.

Hawk starts with DiBiase and it’s Ted sliding to the floor to avoid a right hand. Animal jumps DiBiase on the floor and sends him back inside, only for Hawk to clothesline him right back to the floor. The fans are WAY into the LOD here. Off to Animal vs. IRS with Animal whipping him into the corner and standing on the tie like a smart man would. A gorilla press gets two for Animal before it’s back to Hawk for some arm work.

Irwin comes back with a sleeper but it’s only good for two arm drops before Hawk rams him into the buckle. The top rope clothesline misses IRS though and Hawk falls out to the floor. IRS drops some elbows as for two the fans won’t stop chanting for LOD. Back to DiBiase for some knee drops followed by a chinlock. Jimmy Hart, one of the greatest managers of all time, is yelling at Rocco the dummy. Money Inc. changes off without tagging to send Vince into his usual hysteria.

Hawk finally fights up and rams Ted into the buckle but the hot tag is broken up. The place is going to go nuts when Animal gets in. Ted drops some knees on Hawk and puts on a front facelock but the bird man carries him over towards Animal. IRS breaks up ANOTHER hot tag attempt but gets caught in a double clothesline with Hawk. Animal FINALLY gets the hot tag and cleans house but IRS breaks up the Doomsday Device. Not that it matters much as Animal powerslams DiBiase down for the pin about three seconds later.

Rating: C-. The crowd was HOT for this but it wasn’t much of note. This was part of the three way tag team feud with the Natural Disasters over the fall which ultimately saw Money Inc. coming out with the titles. This was the last appearance for this incarnation of the LOD for years in the WWF because of Rocco. Seriously, Hawk snapped over the idea and didn’t go back to America (to be fair though everyone knew the snap was coming sooner or later).

They had to face a dream team at Saturday Night’s Main Event XXXI.

Tag Titles: Money Inc. vs. Ultimate Warrior/Randy Savage

You should know the ending already by this point. The faces run to the ring and beat the tar out of the champions just because they can. Heenan has the Brain Scan again which is still funny. He uses it to turn this into a Ross Perot joke, making him my hero. Warrior, wearing a singlet, comes in. Warrior misses a shoulder tackle and humps the mat which looks odd as all goodness.

IRS’ finishing move was a flying clothesline. What does that tell you about his career chances? Flair and Ramon are happy about the faces losing which makes no sense as they’re fighting them at Survivor Series anyway, so why not hope it becomes a title match?

Warrior would bail about three days before the show so the match never happened and Perfect would get the spot in a great angle. Savage gets the hot tag and takes over. IRS takes the big elbow but DiBiase makes the save to start the big brawl. The Maniacs just dominate and the heels run for the CHEAP count out. The challengers chase him out and then Ramon and Flair show up for a six man brawl in the aisle.

Rating: C+. It was pure domination by the faces which is kind of stupid as it makes the champions look weak but they were booked as smart and cowardly anyway so that’s all well and good. This was really just to give the Maniacs some ring time together for experience which didn’t matter at all as it became Perfect and Savage anyway.

Time for an elimination tag at Survivor Series 1992.

Nasty Boys/Natural Disasters vs. Beverly Brothers/Money Inc

Money Inc has the Tag Team Titles and are about to fight the Nasty Boys. This is one of those “when one guy gets pinned, both team members are out” deals, so it’s a max of three falls to end this match. We start with Typhoon vs. Blake Beverly and it’s a strut off. Typhoon starts throwing Blake around and puts him in an over the shoulder backbreaker so he can hand him off to Quake for a bearhug.

Beau tries to cheat to help his brother but it only results in a double splash from both Disasters in the corner. Off to Knobbs as the fans aren’t interested in this match at all. Knobbs runs Blake over with clotheslines and brings in Jerry who finally allows a tag to Beau. A pumphandle slam puts Beau down but he no sells it for some reason. Off to DiBiase who can’t suplex Sags, so Sags suplexes him.

Off to IRS who Jerry hiptosses down. The limited selling continues as IRS gets up and brings in Beau for a powerslam and it’s off to Blake again. Scratch that it’s Beau in now. Off to a chinlock from Blake as the Beverlies keep tagging in and out very fast. Jerry tries a quick sleeper but they wind up slamming heads to put both guys down. There’s the tag to Earqhquake and Blake is in trouble. Quake takes out all four of them and everything breaks down. For some reason Beau tries a crucifix on Typhoon and gets crushed for his efforts. The Earthquake from Earthquake eliminates the Beverlies and it’s 4-2.

DiBiase comes in to face Earthquake but gets beaten up by all four opponents in short order. Back to Quake who misses a splash in the corner and Money Inc double suplexes the fatter man down. IRS gets two off the suplex and picks him up to freak Bobby out again. Back to DiBiase as the fans are all over IRS. IRS chokes away on Quake some more and it’s back to DiBiase for some chops.

A middle rope double ax by Ted gets two so here’s IRS again. The champs do tag in and out quite well. Quake clotheslines IRS down and finally makes the hot tag to Typhoon. House is cleaned and a splash crushes IRS. DiBiase trips up Typhoon (how appropriate) and IRS gets the easy pin to tie it up, but Jerry runs in and rolls up IRS for the fast pin to win.

Rating: C. Not bad here but the ending kind of sucked. What was the point in having the Nasties beat Money Inc that fast when the majority of the match was about the Disasters vs. Money Inc? The Nasties were basically there to fill in a spot instead of being the focus of the match for their team. Odd indeed but it was entertaining enough.

Let’s slow things down a bit with Superstars on December 19, 1992.

Money Inc. vs. Chris Hahn/Laverne McGill

Non-title of course. DiBiase takes Hahn down with ease and cranks on the arm as Doink is in the crowd. Off to IRS for some forearms to the back, only to have Hahn reverse into a hammerlock of his own. Interestingly enough, Jerry Lawler has recently debuted on commentary and has a VERY noticeable Tennessee accent. We get an inset interview from the Nasty Boys, who wan the Tag Team Titles, Jimmy Hart’s head on a platter, and to show Money Inc. who is naughty, nice and nasty. Doink comes down to ringside as DiBiase puts McGill in the Million Dollar Dream for the win.

The next big feud was against the Mega Maniacs of Hulk Hogan and Brutus Beefcake. Here they are right before the showdown at Wrestlamania IX on Raw, March 22, 1993.

Money Inc. vs. Scott Rich/Jeff Armstrong

Money Inc.’s titles aren’t on the line. DiBiase and we’ll say Rich start things off. Vince doesn’t know which is which so why should I have to? A quick clothesline puts Rich on the floor as Bartlett is watching TV while on commentary. Thankfully he would be gone soon after this so we didn’t have to put up with his comedy anymore. Off to IRS vs. Armstrong for a bit before it’s quickly back to Ted. This needs to end already as well. Ted hits a powerslam and IRS clotheslines Rich down for the win. Next.

Here’s Wrestlemania IX.

Tag Team Titles: Money Inc. vs. Mega Maniacs

Jimmy Hart is with the challengers because of how the champions hurt Beefcake. Hogan and Beefcake clear the ring while the music is still playing as the match begins. The champions stall on the floor for awhile until we get down to Beefcake (in a red/yellow mask) vs. I.R.S. The tax dude immediately goes for the face and it’s off to DiBiase for more of the same. DiBiase hits a middle rope ax handle to the mask and injures himself in the process. Ted continues to act way dumber than he is by ramming the mask into the buckle. So why did the punches work earlier?

Beefcake rams DiBiase’s head into the buckle instead and in the match we should have gotten five years ago, it’s Hogan vs. DiBiase. Ten punches in the corner put Ted down so Hogan pounds on the mat a bit. Off to Beefcake for a slam before it’s back to hogan for more punching. DiBiase ducks low and is immediately punched in the face again. I.R.S. comes in again and is punched by both Maniacs. All challengers so far.

The champions try to walk out but Finkus Maximus (remember the Roman theme) says that if they leave, they lose the titles. They get back in and the fans are chanting for Hogan. Ted goes for the throat to finally take over and I.R.S. chokes away a bit from the floor. More choking by DiBiase ensues before he cranks it up with the Million Dollar Dream. Savage: “They’re hanging from the rafter! Well they would if they had rafters. They have columns here and they’re hanging from them!”

I.R.S. tries to interfere for some reason but it allows Beefcake to come in with his own sleeper and put DiBiase out to break the hold and buy Hogan a breather. Hogan pops up and the double tag brings in Schyster to face Beefcake. An atomic drop puts Ted on the floor but the tax dude gets in a shot to Beefcake’s back to take over. Dibiase comes back in and rips the mask off of Brutus’ face so the champions can work over the face.

Beefcake comes back with a double clothesline out of nowhere but instead of tagging he puts I.R.S. in the sleeper. Ted breaks it up but the referee is bumped in the process. Hogan comes in like a hero and hits both guys with the steel mask but there’s no referee. What else do you do in this situation? You have Jimmy Hart turn his jacket inside out so it has white and black stripes and have him count then CELEBRATE LIKE YOU WON THE FREAKING BELTS. Another referee comes out to explain to Hogan how stupid he is and give Money Inc. the win by DQ.

Rating: D+. The match was ok at best but the ending is so dumb that I can barely comprehend it. I mean…..HOW STUPID CAN HOGAN POSSIBLY BE??? The guy has been around for nearly ten years and he thinks that would actually work? The match was just ok as it was mainly choking and punching for the first half, which is decent but nothing mind blowing. Then the ending sucked the life out of my brain which is normal for Hogan a lot of the time.

Here’s an odd match from Raw, April 19, 1993.

Beverly Brothers vs. Money Inc.

One Beverly Brothers match isn’t enough??? Dang man who was booking this crap back then? Why in the world would you put THIS on a tape? We’re back to Gorilla and Ross here. It’s heel vs. heel so there we are. It’s the classic showdown that the world was waiting for! And of course the match sucks. So who am I supposed to cheer for her? Am I supposed to cheer? I don’t think so since this is clearly designed to be a test run of a new form of torture.

Gorilla goes into his history of tag team partners which is LIGHT YEARS more interesting as he talks about being partners with guys like Bill Watts. This is a very different style of commentary from Gorilla and JR as they’re clearly having more of a free reign than normal as this isn’t designed to be a regular show.

It lets you have more stuff you want to talk about since you don’t have to plug angles or shows. It’s very nice actually. Granted they don’t have much interest which is fine and understandable. They get bored and just start cracking jokes that you have to be a true wrestling geek to get. To be fair, this is one of the most boring tag matches that I’ve ever seen which is why I’m talking about the far more interesting as well as entertaining commentary.

It’s so funny hearing two old guys talk about how bad things are now that they’ve changed in the 90s. The “brothers” make a mistake and DiBiase gets a rollup for the pin. And all of a sudden Vince is talking??? It was like the production guy pulled the tape early or Vince put his seal of approval on it. That was WEIRD.

Rating: F+. And that’s ALL for the commentary. I have NO idea what the idea here was but it failed and it failed big time. Just a horribly bad match and thankfully the Beverlies wouldn’t be long for the company. On the other hand neither would Money Inc. which is far more upsetting.

We’ll wrap it up with King of the Ring 1993.

Steiners/Smoking Guns vs. Money Inc./Headshrinkers

Well, talk about a tough act to follow. This is nothing but filler here as I don’t think there’s any kind of a point to this match other than to give the crowds a chance to restart their hearts. There’s no story here that I can think of other than you have two face teams and two heel teams going at it. The Guns are about as new as possible at this point.

Ross says he doesn’t want to disrespect this match, so therefore we’ll be lucky to hear who wins. It simply can’t be worse than WCW was though. I will never forget a match between Ultimo Dragon and Steven Regal where literally over the entire course of an eight minute match there was not a single mention of either guy or the match itself until the very end where Tony said 2, 3 (he missed the one) we have a new Television Champion!

Yes, in a match not only on television, not only a title match, but a match where the title CHANGED HANDS, thereby making history as Gorilla liked to say, we have eight minutes of people talking about the NWO and not a word about the two guys in the ring. That’s just pathetic. Anyway, rant over. Scotty and Ted start us up so there we are. To say Heenan is happy is an understatement.

Now remember, we’re NOT going to talk about Yoko and the title match out of respect here. If we don’t talk about them anymore I’m going to scream from hearing about them too much. Ross is at least talking about the match so there’s that. DiBiase beats on Billy and hooks the Dream. Heenan says that Billy is fading into obscurity. I have too many jokes to pick from here. Billy gets a roll up out of nowhere to get the pin and the big brawl starts to the Guns’ awful music.

Rating: C. Eh what do you expect here? This was six minutes of just filler and it’s the absolute best thing they could have done here. No one was going to care about anything after what they just saw, so there we are. This meant nothing at all and it wasn’t supposed to. The wrestling is about what you would expect at a house show, but it wasn’t horrible or anything. This was much more about giving the crowd a breather instead of a real match, and there’s not a thing wrong with that.

Money Inc. is a really fondly remembered tag team who weren’t around all that long. They were good while they lasted though and dominated the tag team scene for the better part of two years. It helped that both guys were incredibly talented and just so easy to hate. That’s not something you can really teach, but I’d love to see DiBiase try.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book on the History of the Royal Rumble at Amazon for just $3.99 at:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PZ1GR7E

And check out my Amazon author page with wrestling books for under $4 at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6